A document titled, MeeGo Handset Interaction Guidelines, was found buried deep within the official Meego site a few days ago. Although there were no images, it described an overall interaction model for the OS expected on upcoming high-end Nokia devices. It has been deleted already, but no online documents are safe from Google Cache! I’ve highlighted some things that looked interesting.

1. Application menu scrolls to the right instead of down.

Applications are presented in a 4 x 4 grid. In the case where there are more than 16 applications, more pages of the same grid are added to the right. Paging through the different grids is done by swiping the current grid off screen, hence bringing the new one into view.

2. Task manager is similar to WebOS’s card view and Symbian^3′s visual multitasker, but if you pinch multi-touch, it becomes grid view!

The default view of the switcher presents the latest accessed task in focus, with the other, different tasks running to the right. Thumbnails are presented in chronological order, as they are opened. It is possible to browse through the thumbnails, one by one, by slowly dragging them, or to use a quick swipe to rapidly pan from one side of the list to the other. Users can use a pinch multi-touch motion to change the switcher into an overview mode. By pinching in, thumbnails move into a grid display.

WebOS card view for multitasking. Photo by premshree

3. Portrait and Landscape keyboard

MeeGo provides support to both virtual and hardware keyboards. It has a portrait and landscape layout, opening according to the orientation it is being called from. If the user rotates the device, the layout is smoothly changed according to the new orientation.

4. View Menu and Homescreen button are similar to how it is currently on Nokia N900 (Maemo)

The View Menu is accessible by tapping the Title Bar. Tapping the Title Bar, the content area outside the View Menu or Close closes it. The homescreen button closes the view menu and takes the user back to the switcher

5. Status Bar and Notifications similar to Android

The Status Bar is the vertical box at the top of the UI. The main use of the status bar is to show signal strength, time and battery life. Status Bar also supports notifications to help remind the user of specific events/alerts. The Notification Drawer is accessible by dragging The Status Bar. A clear button allows the user to dismiss all listed notifications.

Android’s notification bar. Photo by johanl

6. Centralized account management

The account management is centralized in the device: there is one place where the user can add and manage all the various online accounts used in the device applications. Each account can have a separate page for settings, if needed.

Thoughts on Meego Handset UI

This actually sounds like a platform I would enjoy using. It builds upon the awesome multitasking on the current Nokia N900′s Maemo while borrowing some good stuff from Android and WebOS too. Let’s just hope that developers jump on board and create lots of cool apps.

According to Meego, support for handset devices will be released in October, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s when a Nokia device (probably named Nokia N9) running Meego will come out.

Thanks Reggie!