The number of clicks does matter, sometimes

Posted by Jens Lund Møller | Posted in GUI, User experience, iPhone, usability | Posted on 24-04-2008

0

One among many usability rules Steve Krug is famous for is something like, “It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.”

I think thats right most of the time. But on the iPhone i have found one of exeption. I enable or disable WiFi whether i need it or not to conserve battery life. And from day one as an iPhone owner i have wondered why it takes so many clicks to do just that. (4 to be exact. Settings – WiFi – enable/disable – Home button. And thats only if you connect to a WiFi you have used before. Otherwise it’s at least 5.)

Am i the only person in the world who don’t want to waste unnecessary juice and who think that 4 clicks to enable/disable WiFi is way to many clicks even though “each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice”?

No i’m not. Luckily there exist an application called WiFiToggle to solve just that “problem”. Additional to a hacked iPhone you need to add “http://repo.ispazio.net” as a source in the Installer. After that you can find WiFiToggle in the Utilities folder. From now on enabling or disabling WiFi is down to 2 clicks. And that really does matter.

Write a comment