Pfeiffer Consulting is a technology consultant firm that has released a study to see how users are finding iOS 7. The firm looked at user experience data for a number of mobile operating systems including iOS 6, Android (with Samsung’s variations), Windows Phone 8, and Blackberry 10.
So how’d the analysts work it out? Well they compared a number of factors: the operating system's cognitive load, efficiency and integration, options for customization, and user experience friction.
Cognitive load refers to how much information someone has to remember and process simultaneously. To calculate this they looked at how many pre-installed applications and UI elements were in a factory setup. iOS 7 was only outdone by iOS 6, probably because of the Control Center.
Access to key settings and notifications found iOS 7 and Android to be equal thanks to iOS 7’s control center and Android’s notifications. Customization saw Android in the lead while Windows Phone 8 was far behind the others. This was down to the lack of things like home screen background folders and app folders. They also looked at “user experience friction” which refers to the device doing something unexpected. iOS 6 was the best in this regard, closely followed by iOS 7. This was because of the Control Center which occasionally pops up unnecessarily.
