This is the first application I dreamed up, and I meant to post it Monday.

On of the problems with the Google Voice application for Android, is that the only way you can toggle when Google Voice gets used, is either the Home screen short cut (Fig. 1), or by launching the application and opening it’s settings.

The Home screen shortcut is inherently a bad UI. It’s a single button that toggles between four states. There’s no indication of the current state the button is in. When you click the button, the only way you know what new state the application has entered is by a “toast” notification at the bottom of the screen. This notification is often wordy, and vanishes before it can be fully read.

The Google Voice Widget would solve these issues (Fig. 2). Here, we have a Home screen widget that displays the current state. The radio buttons indicate that there is only one choice. It’s large, and easily hittable (Fitts Law). And, it visibly displays what the new state becomes when pressed.

There are caveats to this UI of course. The icon that indicates what the widget is for, isn’t as understandable than text would be. You’re also loosing a lot of screen real estate with such a large widget. Last, the text for each state is abbreviated, and may not be as clear as the full text found in the application’s settings.