Mobile marketers have a few kinks to iron out before they reach the delicate symbiosis between the marketer and the marketplace.

Burger King has announced a new mobile game. Users can play for a monthly fee of $2.99 — about the price of fries and a Coke.

So, there are two sides to put the mayo in dissecting Burger King’s rationale here.

First, let’s say the target user is a Burger King fan. She likes the kitschy enamel King from the TV ads as much as she likes BK’s juicy flame-broiled taste. But, is she enough of a fan to pay $2.99 a month to play the Burger King game on her handset?

From another angle, let’s say the target user is just a really avid casual gamer. But, of the games she could select, is she attracted to branded games of this nature; games where you have to “remember how to make a Whopper” and have to “squirt ketchup through the air while navigating through a BK restaurant?”

The jury is out on this one for me. I know we’ll continue to see experimentation with co-branded marketing campaigns, banner ads, branded content, “pay walls”, etc. I just wasn’t prepared for someone to suggest that users would like to pay recurring monthly fees for branded experiences; especially coming out of the fast food category.

Read the Press Release

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Convergence is sometimes viewed as the consolidation of multiple technologies towards a singular uber-device. I prefer to define convergence as the tendency of technologies, as they grow in complexity and scope, to overlap (and consolidate) functions. Convergence therefore refers to a trend wherein devices and functions take on commonly shared traits, but this doesn’t mean that this trend ultimately ends with a single multifunctional mega-device, no matter how cool and ‘mad scientist’ that might sound. Product mobility, technical innovation/component obsolescence, and proprietary ownership of certain functions are among the many forces that will ensure we continue to interact with ecosystems of related and overlapping devices rather than a single device with every function built in.
Nevertheless, convergence as a concept serves well to illustrate how interaction design for devices is changing. As our devices advance and change, they are often consolidating functions previously reserved for separate devices. Examples of this can be seen in most modern devices, from mobile phones (which serve as PDAs, calculators, mini-computers, and portable game consoles as well as communication devices) to Media Center PCs (which serve as DVR, stereo music player, and digital picture frame as well as a standard personal computer).
With all this in mind, here are 7 considerations to use when designing interactions for converged devices.

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I’m discovering more and more that it’s not the user experience groups within the carriers and handset manufacturers that we need to convince about a new interface innovation; it’s the chipset manufacturers. While the vision and promise of a given UI might grease the necessary wheels of approvals to get an innovation to market, it rarely arrives without a degree of compromise.

Take the Sony XPERIA X1. In this highly-polished pitch video, the UI shucks and jives with all the agility of motion graphics at their finest. And sure, it works. For a UI that relies on a simple 3-view switcher to differentiate, it does make for a unique mobile experience. It certainly is more interesting than a lot of phone UIs out there. However, the actual device experience does lack in the speed department. The experience becomes even more painful when navigating the arched carousel, as demonstrated in this video.

Are companies hoping simple-minded consumers won’t notice these details? Unfortunately, in this example, an interesting UI transition has now become something that many users can’t help but notice — and wait for — every time they switch modes. Despite the fact that this is largely driven by the processor’s ability to push the objects around screen, this is the very stuff that perpetuates the stereotype that visual designers are all about gratuitous graphics at the cost of UI efficiency.

Sony XPERIA, marketing video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7RMHcUuGQ

Sony XPERIA, hands-on at 3GSM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuo9CAZCbIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wU5eiMR57s

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Symbian seems to be in the first stage of grief over Android, Google’s new operating system for mobile. From an article by the BBC: “Google’s dominance of the web will not translate to the mobile phone market, a senior executive at Symbian has said.”

From the Symbian exec:
“About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched.

“It’s a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don’t participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively.”

And two paragraphs later:
“Meanwhile, the head of Nokia in the UK said the firm was in discussions with Google about using the platform.”

Read the BBC News article.

Link via Slashdot.

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The context versus consistency debate is not new, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be over. 37signals adds another argument to the context pile…

I read this interesting (short) article on 37signals.com concerning Apple’s placement of their new iTunes icon on the iPhone home screen. Given that the western world reads from left to right, users would expect this last icon to appear on the left side, right?… Not so says Apple, here’s why:

Read Context over Consistency at 37signals.com.

Although it’s something that the common person might not notice or ‘get’, it shows that the Apple UI folks are never asleep at the wheel and that they spend time thinking about the small details and their resulting implications. Don’t just do things automatically because tradition says we should or because the technology says it should be that way.

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Today at the EuroIA Summit, Barcelona, we will discuss insights from the Punchcut-funded mobile social networking study.

The poster lists the chief insights and provides a visualization of the users ages and their behaviors (text messaging, IM, email, photo sharing, blogging, commenting both using desktop apps and mobile devices).
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You’ve probably had this experience:

• You anticipate the arrival of a new device for weeks.
• You discuss it with your friends, read the reviews and the promised features.
• You listen to the hype; sometimes a believer, sometimes a skeptic.
• You try the device in the store. It’s got some nice features.
• You buy it.
• Your friends ask to play with it and strangers ask what it is.
• 1 week later the allure is gone. The experience has imperfections.
• 2 weeks later its weaknesses are clear. You don’t love it. There are a few cumbersome interactions and design flaws.

The iPhone stands out strongly as an exception. It definitely passes the 2 week test criteria: a) you love it more after 2 weeks than you did when you got it and b) you can’t remember life before it. (Okay, so I’m exaggerating that last point.)

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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.

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A couple of insightful posts have surfaced about Nokia’s worldwide research. The first on BBC News is an interview with Jan Chipchase, Nokia Design’s principal researcher. I first heard Chipchase talk about his work at the DUX 2005 conference in San Francisco. I came away knowing he has, hands down, the coolest job around.

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Fiona Carswell, a graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, has the answer to your text message doldrums.

“CELL STICKIES: For people who go to great lengths to see what they want to see, Cell Stickies is a small booklet of translucent sheets with comforting messages printed on them. Not satisfied with the text message you received? Peel off a Cell Sticky and slap it on your cellphone screen, showing you the message you really wanted to see.”

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