Crit Board

The biggest problem in almost every unit converter I have seen, is that they require users to ask their questions in a specific format, computer (or iPhone in this case) can understand.

Most of the unit converters force people to make double effort in order to get to know something.

Consider the following scenario: You’re trying to explain yesterday’s baseball game to your Icelandic friend. During their last at bat, the Phillies hit 456 foot home run. Amazing! But You punch the info into your Unit Converter app. In order to get an answer, you must translate the question into a format the application understand

• You go to “Categories”
• Select meters for the “To” unit
• Select feet for the “From” unit
• Use the numberpad to type in 456
• Double check that you are converting 456 feet into metres, not vice versa.

Are all these steps necessary? You just wanted to know “What is 456 feet in meters?”.
But you had to ask this question in computer-robo-world-speak. You had to pick the correct options from a list to be understood. Good software speaks your language.

Among endless unit converters, only Google does it the right way.

Using speech recognition technology might be another good idea, sometimes your hands aren’t free when you need to do some unit conversion, say your icelandic friend is driving on a highway, and needs to convert 55 mph speedlimit into kilometers per hour.
If you apply everything described above, your app can become something like this (I put together a quick draft to illustrate the point, this is not a final design suggestion):

This application is much easier to use because there’s no more RoboTalk: it doesn’t force users to browse categories and subcategories, and it accepts questions given in everyday vernacular.