Despite their advanced hardware, handsets here often have primitive, clunky interfaces…. The conflict between Japan’s advanced hardware and its primitive software has contributed to some confusion over whether the Japanese find the iPhone cutting edge or boring.

I told myself I’ll be writing less about tech, but the article above raised too salient a point for me to pass up. It reinforces what I’ve always bemoaned about Japanese manufacturers, that the problem is while they know how to make sexy hardware, they can’t do software for shit. Their products boast all the hardware prowess, but are accompanied by inconsistent and incomprehensible software interfaces, resulting in shitty user experiences. Using their software, I am often left with the impression that their user interfaces seem to have been designed by engineers and not by designers.

And speaking of the iPhone and how UI factors into this matter, this problem extends to other manufacturers as well, not just the Japanese ones. Take, for example, touch interfaces. I find it astonishing that so many manufacturers still do not grasp the concept of what a great touch interface should be. Sure, any one with sufficient coding chops can whip up competent UIs—just graft a touchscreen over some buttons and call it a day. And since users expect software to just work, as long as all the buttons are there, that’s all there is to it, no?

No.

That is only taking care of the science of software. The art of software—how a user interacts with the UI—is the key ingredient which is all too often missing. Elegance and simplicity in the design of user interfaces are what separate good software from great software. Less is more.

This is what Sony Ericssion doesn’t get by adopting Windows Mobile; I still think it’d have had a better shot if it completely redesigned UIQ from the ground up. This is what Nokia doesn’t get by going with the mess that is Symbian S60, with its many traces of design decisions made based on an antiquated pen-based UI, in its flagship N97.

The only manufacturers that appear to be cueing in on the importance of software design are LG, with its S-Class UI, and HTC, with its TouchFLO 3D, although the former has all the flash and none of the subtlety, while the latter is ultimately still a gloss-over of Windows Mobile 6.x, of which its design concept is clearly outdated. Palm and Google do seem to get it too, with webOS on the Palm prē and Android on the G1 respectively, though I have yet to try either.

I can go on and on about why design matters to me, and I acknowledge the fact that there are other users who don’t give a rat’s ass about elegant software design—it’s the whole left-brained/right-brained thing.

Fair enough. Which is why it goes the same for manufacturers as it does for users when it comes to design:

You either get it or you don’t.