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.
Listen to the podcast here:
mobile_etiquette.mp3
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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.
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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.
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