14 DAY TRIAL // Yuvee's NeoKeys is an intuitive new interface that was designed to 'let users do all the things they want to do, in a riched more engaging way'. What does this mean, exactly? Basically, the phone's keypad will come packed with tiny LCD screens (one above each of the phone's keys) that can display certain commands.
On each side of the standard keys, there will be other a column of keys dedicated for options and menus. Each time the user will select a certain function, the LCD's over the middle 12 keys will display commands for that function only.
So if, for example, the user were to press the Voice Mail key, the LCD's would display all available commands for that function, like Save, Delete or Replay. One nice aspect of this interface is that it will allow a wide range of languages and symbols, including Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish and English, even emoticons and doodles as its creators claim. Users will be able to switch among modes with a single click without having to navigate through menus.
With an open-source architecture, NeoKeys 'creates a virtually blank canvas on which everything is possible', allowing programmers to customize the interface for practically any application and users to change it according to preference.
While this might be easy to use (because the user can read what each key does), as well as an interesting concept, it's not very likely that mobile phone manufacturers will embrace the interface too soon. Also, for some people so many keys doing so many different things might end up being quite confusing, even though its designers seem to have tried to keep it as simple to use as possible.