This week at SXSW (pronounced South by Southwest) Jared Benson, Executive Creative Director at Punchcut, will lead a conversation titled “Mobile Manners: Mobile Presence and the Undefined Etiquette.”
Left to our own devices, what happens to our manners? Jared will lead a discussion among user experience design practitioners in discussing the profound effects the always-on mobile lifestyle is having on the way we interact with people and the world. In the same old contexts, we have a whole new set of choices: Do I really have to take this? Should I just put my headphones in and pretend I can’t hear them? Instead of calling mom back, can I text her? The cues and standards for how we communicate on our devices in the presence of others are just beginning to be defined. For the most part, individuals - not social norms - are deciding what is appropriate.
This conversation will cover what the UE design community can do to empower the user and alleviate the fear that we are becoming isolated by our technologies. Punchcut will facilitate a discussion on contextual considerations, the formality of various mediums, and the demands of emerging ideas like mobile presence.
Join the conversation at SXSW on Sunday March 9th at 5pm in Ballroom E.
Josh Ulm, Director of User Experience, Adobe spoke at the company’s annual MAX conference in Chicago.
I especially liked his before and after review of Yahoo! Go and Google Maps for mobile.
His comments on “Demonstrating the Brand” were right on — especially his point about the newish Yahoo! Go application. The user interface is a huge improvement over the previous Yahoo! WAP version, but even though the visual branding is much better aligned, the application falls short of the Yahoo! brand promise. Yahoo! is built on bringing me my content, and somehow the Yahoo! Go app manages to deliver merely generic content.
This point is one the mobile industry, and more specifically, the mobile user experience community is not focused enough on. Focusing on getting the usability and the interactions right is only part of the equation. Don’t lose sight of the content. Is it right? And is its delivery true to the brand.
Since a majority of Ulm’s thoughts are shared in Mobile Persuasion I’ve just focused on the highlights.
Qualcomm’s annual BREW conference wrapped up in San Diego on Friday. This year saw an unprecedented focus on user experience, with panel and breakout sessions over all 3 days on everything from Understanding Users Through Contextual Inquiry to User Centered Design for Mobile Environments and Designing and Evaluating Mobile User Interfaces. Qualcomm also sponsored quick-hit 30-minute sessions where attendees had the opportunity for Q&A in a more informal environment.
Although some sessions were introductory in nature, several assumed a degree of knowledge about user centered design in general and its application to the mobile space in particular. This leads me to think that BREW is attracting a more diverse audience that is increasingly aware of the importance of a user centered approach to mobile interfaces and seeking out information to this end. This is a good thing for anyone who uses a mobile phone, which is to say, pretty much everyone.
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Paul Kompfner, Head of Development for ERTICO spoke in response to the following MEX manifesto point:
“The world is gaining embedded intelligence. The mobile industry faces a fundamental user experience challenge to make handsets as effective as communicating with the environment as they are with other humans. We think the connection of millions of machines to wireless communication networks represents the most significant generational change since the introduction of packet data.”
Imagine this: As you approach your vehicle, technology in your mobile phone interfaces with the car. It authenticates and unlocks for you. The seats, mirrors, radio stations adjust to your presets as you settle into the vehicle.
You start the car without need for a key. Your media in your device syncs with the larger capacity and capability of the vehicle. As you rocket down the highway listening to a favorite podcast, a call comes in. The volume reduces and you’re able to press a key on your steering wheel to take the call, never having had to take your eyes off the road.
Suddenly carrying around a device in our hand feels only mildly mobile. How does a user’s needs change when moving down a highway at 100mph? The automobile is the next frontier for the mobile user experience. Getting the experience right can mean the difference between life and death. Continue Reading »
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Antti Ohrling, co-founder of Blyk kicked off the second day of the MEX conference with his views on understanding the importance of user experience in delivering mobile advertising. Ohrling’s core belief is that mobile advertising is successful only if it is relevant and contextual: the consumer must see it as a benefit, rather than a distraction.
Ohrling used his presentation to discredit 3 commonly held myths about advertising in the mobile context, based on his experience with Blyk and on customer surveys Blyk has recently conducted. First he pointed out that the target audience for mobile advertising is a 19-year-old male, 80% of whom are paying their own monthly mobile phone bill.
Myth #1: Content is King
By this Ohrling means the use of content as a platform to delivery advertising. A January 2007 survey of 619 mobile phone users aged 16 to 24 year-old asked them what they do most with their mobile phones:
Voice
Text
Alarm clock
73% do not use mobile data services. 2/3 said they use mobile data services once a month or less, which in essence means that they don’t use it at all. Tying a mobile advertising campaign to WAP-based content that requires the consumer to access via the browser on their device is thus not a sound decision.
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Paul Nerger, Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing at Argogroup, spoke in response to the following manifesto point:
“User experience performance must be measured if it is to be improved. It must be constantly tracked through quantitative and qualitative methods. We think organizations throughout the value chain are failing to recognize the importance of understanding customers because quantifying the return on investment is too difficult”.
Paul started his talk by illustrating Argogroup’s services through case studies. One highlighted a “false event”, a momentary spike in service that results in temporary failures. Typical SMS-based false events include New Year Eve and the Super Bowl. So many people send New Year’s greetings to their family and friends at the stroke of midnight or to trash talk during the last few minutes of the Super Bowl that service spikes, resulting in high levels of data usage. When these patterns are not anticipated by carrier’s operations centers performance of the SMS service is drastically impacted, with message delivery unreasonably delayed. In some instances messages are not delivered at all.
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — The second session of the first day of the MEX conference examined the evolution of community services and social networking in the mobile environment. This session was in a panel format, meaning that following the speaker, discussion took place among subject matter “experts” invited to weigh in on the topic. I was fortunate to be one of the members of this panel, along with Frederick Ghahramani of AirG, Neil Cox of the CMO Council and Antonio Vince Staybil of GoFresh and itsmy.com.
Although only a very small percentage of Vodafone’s subscribers use its mobile internet and content services, Al pointed out that that represents about 4 million users. He expects these numbers to grow as the range of content offered on the mobile internet grows and becomes easier to access via mobile devices.
Al was candid in his talk about the challenges Vodafone has faced in translating a community experience from one context, that of the fixed or PC-based internet, to mobile. He astutely reasoned that a literal translation won’t be succesful and that only those aspects of the PC experience that are meaningful in the mobile context should constitute the mobile experience.
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Well the day has wound to a close here in London, and my mind is a-swirl with new ideas for the mobile experience. The format of this conference is rather refreshing, with a mixture of speakers, panel discussions, and group breakout sessions, which has been conducive for both keeping things interesting and providing opportunities for much-needed elbow-rubbing with other like minds shaping the mobile space.
The day kicked off this morning with Cliff Crosbie, Global Director of Retail Marketing for Nokia. Cliff has spent many years working in the retail space, and asked us the question, “When does exceptional service happen?” He pointed out that the big idea, the big brand, rests in the hands of the young person who is working in the mobile retail environment. It’s on them to deliver on the brand promise, which may be difficult if they are distracted, disenfranchised, or simply not knowledgable about the product.
Cliff quoted a recent article from The Sun, which said that “owning a mobile phone can improve living standards more than being given the right to vote.”
Eric Nicoli (CEO of EMI Group) hinted in his keynote at CTIA that his company had been “experimenting” with DRM-free music and said that their studies showed people would be willing to pay more for it. Last weeks’EMI Group announcement of an iTunes deal will make higher quality, DRM-free, tunes available for $1.29. The new offering doesn’t replace the existing $.99 DRM versions. What’s even more user-friendly is that users who own DRM versions can upgrade their tracks for $.30 each.
Eric Nicoli also made a call for the mobile industry, specifically those in the media and entertainment realm, to take cues from Apple and address issues like value for price, making compelling products and ease of use.
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Paul Kompfner, Head of Development for ERTICO spoke in response to the following MEX manifesto point:
MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Antti Ohrling, co-founder of Blyk kicked off the second day of the MEX conference with his views on understanding the importance of user experience in delivering mobile advertising. Ohrling’s core belief is that mobile advertising is successful only if it is relevant and contextual: the consumer must see it as a benefit, rather than a distraction.
Eric Nicoli also made a call for the mobile industry, specifically those in the media and entertainment realm, to take cues from Apple and address issues like value for price, making compelling products and ease of use.