The iPhone soundly bested both the Nokia N95 and HTC Touch in a recent usability test by Perceptive Sciences, a Texas-based usability consulting firm. The test, which was designed to be as objective as possible, asked ten people who had never used any of the three devices to perform simple tasks, such as setting the phone to vibrate, making a call, saving a phone number to the contact list, sending a brief e-mail, and taking a photo.
Completion times for each task were recorded and compared; based on these results and the scientists’ observations, a score of between one and five was awarded. Overall, the iPhone received a score of 4.6 out of 5, compared to the HTC Touch’s score of 3.4 and the N95’s score of 3.2.
“Testers were [typically] about twice as fast doing specific tasks on the iPhone, which is pretty remarkable,” said senior research scientist Tom Thornton. The iPhone was triumphant in all but one of the five testing categories, losing to the Nokia N95 in “Functionality.”
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