Hello again everyone.  In case you missed it yesterday, Aha is at CES this week, and is a finalist in the CES Mobile Apps Showdown.  Robert has been presenting a preview demo of an all-new Aha app, with a lot of really cool possibilities (streaming podcasts anyone?).

If you are in Las Vegas for the event, you still have another chance to catch a demo.  It will be during the Mobile Apps Showdown Finals tomorrow.

• Saturday, 1/9 – 12:30 – Room 257 of the North Hall.

But since many of you aren’t lucky enough for a “work” trip to Vegas, we also have some details about the new app over on the Aha website.  Either way…be sure to take a look and let us know what you think.

And now, on with the first “Twenty-Ten” (yes, I’m in the camp that is against everyone continuing the “Two Thousand and…” crap) edition of the Shouts of the Week.

Caraoke
queenmari – All I Wanna Do - 
ahajunior – Apologize - 

Traffic
syzygy – 3-4 MPG…that’s it – SF Bay Area
Ziplock – accident on 295S – DC Metro Area

#%& DRIVERS!
andyscherer – It might not be for you… – Tri-State Area
guest_07EU2K2 – You’re driving too slowww – New Orleans-Metairie-Bogalusa

Ryan
Aha Community Czar

CES 2010 is just kicking off, but we’ve already got some exciting news to report.  Aha has been selected as a finalist for the CES Mobile Apps Showdown.

Our CEO is at CES right now, and will be demo’ing our new app (Coming Soon!) during the Showdown.  If you are at CES you should make sure you head over and check out Robert’s presentation!

• Thursday, 1/7 – 2:10 – North Hall, “Living in Digital Times” Stage
• Friday, 1/8 – 2:15 – North Hall, “Living in Digital Times” Stage
• Saturday, 1/9 – 12:30 – Room 257 of the North Hall.

If, like me, you are not fortunate enough to be in Vegas for the event, check back here or keep an eye on twitter.com/AhaMobile for updates.

Ryan
Community Czar
Aha Mobile

You may have thought that we at Aha only care about Festivus (it is, after all, for the rest of us), but we really embrace all choices for all of our users.

Whether you are into Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Soyal, Winter Solstice, Yule, or really anything at all … we would like to wish you and yours a safe holiday season.

And now that we have all the formalities out of the way…on with the special (and abbreviated) Holiday Edition of the Top Shouts!

Seasonal Caraoke
guest_00A8U27 – Silent Night
guest_00BHGUU – Jingle Bells
timdogs – We Wish You…
guest_00P8MIT – Jingle Bells

Ryan
Aha Community Czar

Did you really think I could pass up the opportunity to wish everyone a delightful Festivus?  Of course you didn’t!

Hi everyone. I’m Jason, and I’m probably most well known around the Aha office as the “user experience” guy. You’re welcome to go out, Google it, and come back when you’re ready, but I’m happy to give you a quick description. I’m concerned with your interaction with the product: how you learn it, how you navigate through the available functionality, and how it can adapt to your needs.

When a new screen is going to be created, I’m always thinking about what information to show to you, the user, given your goals (what you need to do) and the environment you’re in. Not only should it function like you expect, but it should look beautiful while doing it, too!

While in previous jobs, I’ve been designing applications (or for devices) where the environment is relatively predictable, such as the palm of a user’s hand (while sitting), the television in a living room, and so on. When the setting changes to a car, the design has to adjust accordingly.

Usually, designers ask the question, “What is the user’s primary goal” when creating a feature or an application. For Aha, all of our primary goals are truly secondary goals in relation to the environment,  as your primary goal is to drive your vehicle safely without causing harm to yourself or others!

So how do we let you accomplish those goals while staying safe? Well, our thought from day one was to design a safe interface for whatever platform Aha runs on. For the iPhone, Apple does a wonderful job in teaching application creators how to make interfaces that follow Apple’s own design principles with their Human Interfaces Guidelines document.

However, the user interfaces described are supposed to be used while you’re not behind the wheel of an automobile. As our environment is mainly in the car, we relied on human factors driving research to help define our interface. (If you ever feel like reading books like Human Factors of Visual and Cognitive Performance while Driving, just come by the office; I’m happy to lend it out). This led to some of the principles that make up the Aha interface, such as:

• Light text on dark backgrounds: Although this may simply seem like an aesthetic change, the difference becomes much more apparent at night. With a white background, the extra brightness that’s output from the screen can reflect off of your dark windshield and lead to distraction.
• Small “cognitive bits”: Research has shown that traditional in-vehicle activities take generally few in-vehicle glances, with each being short in duration. On average, you can read your speedometer in a single glance, and that glance can be as short as 0.6 sec (Dingus, Antin, Hulse, and Wierwille, 1989). The more information you put on a display, the longer and more frequent glances will occur. That’s less time for your eyes to be on the road. Therefore, we attempted to boil down the information in each feature to what you need “at a glance”, so you can look quickly, see if something is new or changed, and look back at the road.
• Information entry while moving kept to a minimum: It’s been in the news quite a lot lately that text messaging is very dangerous while driving; in fact, it can be up to 23 times more dangerous than non-distracted driving! Therefore, we want to keep entry of information while you’re behind the wheel kept to an absolute minimum. This is why we look around for traffic on routes nearby and use voice as a way to receive and send information about traffic (and anything else fun and interesting) in shout rooms.
• Large target areas and gestures: When using a mobile interface where your finger is the input mechanism, fine control goes out the window in the car environment. The vehicle is moving, the device may or may not be mounted, and your primary focus is the road. So, there’s relatively few selections per screen, because we’d rather you select the right thing the first time and have an easy time doing it. Also, gestures are incorporated (swiping back and forth on the shout room playback screen, for example), so you don’t even have to look at the screen while using it.

On that last point, placing your iPhone in a fixed location in the car can be beneficial. The screen can be placed just outside your peripheral vision for quick glancing, and as it won’t be moving around, your hand will always know where to point to answer a call or leave a shout. Our recommendation goes to the Arkon mount:

See larger image CM014-2+CC005-IP: Arkon Mini Windshield Mount for Apple iPhone 3G and Original Apple iPhone () New From: $8.35 In Stock

Hope you enjoyed hearing a bit about the Aha design process, and we always welcome feedback and suggestions.

Jason Silver
User Experience guy

Happy Turkey Day to everyone out in Aha land.  Hopefully you all had safe travels en route to see all of your family and friends this weekend.  And if you used Aha during any of your driving you no doubt noticed that DRAMATIC improvement to the launch time (announced earlier this week).  With any luck that means you are leaving a ton of shouts, and hearing all sorts of great shouts from others.  This leads me to the SHOUTS OF THE WEEK (one day early, because I know you will all be out shopping tomorrow!).

Misc. & Awesome
guest_069IMVK – Old McDonald, Rockabye Baby – Tri-State Area

Caraoke
mickey14 – If I Ain’t Got You
@yank – Play Your Part (Pt 2)

Traffic
redbeardeddevil – Traffic is stop and go – Charlotte Metro Area
NewYorkDevil – Expect some congestion – Tri-State Area

#%& DRIVERS!
jules – I hate when people speed up… – Las Vegas/Paradise – EXPLICIT
ibrahim – It says wrong way – Metro Detroit
bc – they won’t hurry up – Metro Atlanta

Ryan
Aha Community Czar

So much to share this week, so I’ll dispense with the typical pleasantries and tomfoolery.

We are almost through our first week of the three week Traffic Shout of the Day contest.  Announced winners for the first three days were:

RandR – Major stand still – Greater St. Louis Area
jaybsauceda – Be vigilant! – Greater Houston Area
stefonee – …an especially easy ride – Greater Chicagoland Area

…and our winner for day 4 is:

Wayne – Should clear up – Los Angeles/Inland Empire

Congrats to Wayne for his clear and detailed report.  Your card is on the way.  For everyone else, there is still plenty of time to get in on the fun.  All you have to do is register for Aha and leave a traffic shout.  There are 11 prizes left to give out.  You can see complete rules and details at facebook.com/AhaMobile.

In other news this week, Aha was awarded with a lovely trophy for snagging the Next-Generation Applications & Services prize at the Location 2.0 Summit this week. We are all very excited to have our first actual trophy for the office.  Now all we need is a trophy case.

And without further ado, here are this week’s top shouts. Enjoy!

Misc. & Awesome
guest_07JSEAI – Fat man in a little…car? (Tommy Boy)
guest_00O26S9 – ABCDEFG

Caraoke
guest_00LBMG6 – Unfaithful
@Yank – 3030
@jaybsauceda (not just a traffic reporter) – The Gambler 

Traffic
See above

#%& DRIVERS!
JoeMerc – Move your #%&! out of the way! – EXPLICIT
Indifference – The light’s GREEN!!! – EXPLICIT
Bud – Who gives them a license?!?!

Ryan
Aha Community Czar