A Scary Thought

While reviewing some screen mockups for EditLive! today, it occurred to me just how limited an environment we’re forced to work in. It turns out that the default, and thus most common, size of a rich text area in IBM WCM is 740×450 (note to Ephoxians, I mistakenly quoted this as 740×360 earlier so we have slightly more vertical space than I thought).  Even in my blog’s editing interface, the editor is 718×600.

That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that the iPhone has a screen that’s 480×320.

Now an extra couple of hundred pixels width makes a huge difference, but when you look at how much time people spend trying to strip out functions and minimize UI in iPhone apps, it’s scary to think that we aim to pack the functionality of Microsoft Word into that kind of space.

I think the only reason we manage it is by providing real drop down menus, whereas most in-browser editors just try to cram everything on to the toolbar. At least I know why UI design for EditLive! is such a challenge…