Blogging UX Week - Mobile Experience Design
Mobile Experience Design - Anita Wilhelm
"The future is mobile"
What do you think of when you think mobile design? [audience] screen space, no keyboard, no standards
Mobile design must take into account that we’re now interacting with devices that weren’t meant to do what we’re trying to do with them. We’re left with using the phone as a joystick due to differing hardware, and poor APIs.
mFoundry, a mobile UI company, has built an interface that makes it easy to input data, but, still, how do you submit a form?
The common metaphors we see in the web space are changing in the mobile space: hardware buttons must take the place of software buttons. Mobile design is not just about a smaller screen, it’s about cramming the web experience into a phone, which is ultimately design first for calling.
Furthermore, when we’re designing for phones, we are designing as we’re moving through users’ lives: users are always connected to their phones, they always have them.
4info has adapted search to the mobile market. In part, they are successful because they don’t overburden the user with information. They’re also monetizing their offering.
Caterpillar, Anita’s company, learned in user research that advertising in SMS that it doesn’t matter how many ads the user gets as long as the ads are always relative to the txt message or further helpful: if a company pushes an ad for Fandango to a user txting searches on movie times, then the user will accept those ads and act on them.
A new question that pops up in the mobile space is what happens when all a user’s personal info is stored in a mobile device? We’re then forced to move into the realm of "private" design: finding ways to hide users’ personal information while not being too intrusive.
[audience] What is the disconnect between the US market and high-tech Japanese phones? [AW] The US is 2-3 years behind. It’s not a cultural difference but is more due to [carrier] business decisions.
[audience] Is the mobile market piling on too many features? [AW] When you start coupling all these things together, you’re taking away from the best design possible. The phone soon will become almost like a backup to other devices: the computer will have the rich interface; the phone will have a scaled down interface as it’s a secondary device.
[audience] What about voice-driven apps? [AW] They should be the key, but voice recognition software is not very good. It’s difficult for the end-user to set up (and a difficult set up means little to no adoption - A). Voice recognition is not a very near effective solution for interfacing.
[audience] With hardware manufacturers cramming more features in, what about older users? (A - he seemed to be saying that, as users get older, they’ll have an increasingly harder time to actually see and type into whatever interface we put in our mobile device). [AW] As interfaces get better, it will be easier to read these things. Bigger phones have more weight making them easier to hold and use.
[aud.] Location-based services: can technology development outside the mobile industry functionally go around the carriers? [AW] The only thing that would be possible [to let developers do an end-around the carriers] would be something using Bluetooth because US carriers own all the highways.
[aud.] What’s a good move in the short-term to boost e-commerce on mobile devices? [AW] In South Africa, it’s cheaper to install mobile infrastructures. There, you can buy goods in the market with your phone, helping farmers to keep track of their inventory. E-commerce is driven by need; cheap mobile satisfies that need.
[aud.] How far ahead are other countries? [AW] In Europe, you can buy train tickets with your phone. In Germany, you can rent bikes with SMS.
[aud.] How do you advertise mobile software? [AW] 1.) Many game publishers have the option of going straight to a carrier. However, there’s a big push to go around carriers. These publishers believe that "if we own the users, we don’t need the carriers." 2.) Use non-traditional media and direct marketing.
[aud.] What is the dispartiy between doing client-side apps and SMS on a mobile phone? [AW] The pure benefit is presentation. It keeps the user locked into one experience. Once a user has opened an application - which is the hardest thing - you can load more information with HTTP GPRS than with SMS.
[aud.] Is there an organization helping to organize a standard devlopment platform for mobile devices (there’s BREW, J2ME …)? [AW] I don’t think it will be as standard as the web. There are too many manufacturers, and all think the phone has different functions. In the future, there will be more compliant APIs that will allow developers interact with new parts of the phone, like cameras and keyboards.
[slide notes]
(3) There are three times more phones than laptops. In most of the world, the first Internet experience someone will have will be on a phone.
(9) The phone is an intimate device: you always have it with you.
[AJM] This is where it’s going. The real challenge for designers is working with a lot less real estate at a lot lower resolution: there’s not much room to play with, so choosing which features to present and which features to make prominent can make or break an interface. For anyone doing anything in the mobile market, the challenge is figuring out whether to work with or work around mobile carriers: they have the market locked up, but, if you build a product that people love, they’ll use that product whether or not it has their carrier’s stamp of approval. I believe that the carrier is secondary: users see - and want - the products first. If you make it great, they’ll buy it.
