Radical Simplicity and Complexifiers
The Jitterbug phone is a radically simple device; it makes and receives calls. You don’t even have to dial numbers if you don’t want to. It has no “confusing icons”. It’s not from Nokia.
It’s not that Nokia doesn’t make simple phones, although I’m not sure we make a phone entirely free of icons. By “simple” I mean “vastly less complex than any S60 device”, by the way. The Jitterbug is a marketing approach, more than anything. There’s a bit of design there, but I think it’s essentially an off-the-shelf Samsung phone being marketed to people who specifically dislike products like S60 phones. I occasionally meet people in that category, and their dislike can be quite intense.
This is interesting. I don’t think “ease of use” is exactly the issue; it’s complexity of use, even if that complexity is made easy to cope with. Complexity, for some people, is a problem; a bug in the system. And it’s a problem that I think can’t be helped by any amount of interface design — the only acceptable way to design a product that will appeal to people in this category is to remove functions. This is quite the opposite of many people, and I suspect virtually the entire S60 market. Maybe it’s a generational thing, as suggested here. I think about it like this: there are “simplifiers” and then there are “complexifiers”.
As an interface designer, I find this fascinating. Assuming we could make a product a simplifier would not want to kick us out of town for producing (remember, that dislike can be intense), I like thinking about how to design a browser they’d like.
I even have a personal project in this direction. I’m motivated by something quite personal; my mother is one of these function-averse people. She does not have (will not accept) a telephone answering machine. She barely tolerates a phone at all. Do not mention “mobile phone” to her. Please. I know what will happen. And yet…she loves to read and has quite an extensive library. Before her retirement, she was a nurse and had no difficulty with medical equipment, including electronic monitors with fairly arcane interfaces (I didn’t play with them when they were connected to anyone). Anyway, I think she would enjoy the web, and she would be easily able to cope with it aside from attitudinal issues. The design challenge is to create a browser that she, and people like her, would find appealing.
I’ll let you know. Um, by a letter written in ink on paper, just like it’s supposed to be! 
I have found that function-adverse people tend to look at a phone as just that–a phone. Any other feature that isn’t a “phone” detracts from the overall experience.
It’s not just about the interface, it’s the form factor and a variety of other things. If you can package that in a way that a function-adverse person would go “wow, I’ve gotta have that,” then you’ve got something.
I believe (looking at my own parents…) that it is about motivation to use a feature more than anything else.
For example, my mum has never had the slightest inclination to use a PC (even though she originally worked as an R&D lab assistant for a camera maker for several years, back in the 60s) - until about two years ago, when she started using a digital camera.
Suddenly the wish to reply to the e-mails that her friends starting sending her with pictures of their gardens, and most importantly including images of her own with the response, very naturally led to her wanting a PC, an e-mail address, learning about attaching files, rescaling JPEGs etc.
It is the same at the other end of the scale - 11-year old schoolgirls (not your stereotype of a nerdy, technophile crowd…) want mobile phones and ICQ accounts not because its “cool” technology, but because it is a way to get in touch with their friends, talk about boys etc.
Probably no “UI analyst” would have been able to predict the success of mobile-originated SMS messages, due to the cumbersome multi-tap interface for typing text. And yet, if that’s what it takes to get a date, they’ll have it down to an art in no time.
To put it in your mother’s likely terms - why would she want an answering machine, when she’s not bothered about people being able to leave a message? After all, they can call again later when she’s there, as they always did. What is there on the web that interests her and that she can’t find in a book or a newspaper? Answer these questions, and you’re there.
Hello Peter,
Another bullseye as usual…
I agree that “pure phone” functionality - like a Nokia 1110 which is simple, quick, robust and runs for a week on one charge - is unbeatable by any smart phone in phone functionality. (OK, that one does not have thye loudspeaker…)
I see only one chance for “complex devices” as you called them, and it is some form of parallel operating system, running a phone core independently from - but sufficiently connected to - the “complex core”. I could imagine this as a networked computer system in one device and one terminal window: the screen.
Regarding your dream about your Mum’s internet experience on a pocket device, you could have given her an E70 pre-configured by you. Putting the browser on the stand by screen with preset internet accesspoint for home WLAN, and teaching her to push the red button in an emergency, would have simplified the E70 to a phone with a browser aand full keyboard, having loudspeaker if she opens the keypad going silent when closing the keypad. Simple. Naturally this only works if she really does not need the rest of things, just phone and browser.
Unfortunatelly, I am not sure you have heard, the E70 does not support the latest browser…
I do not know who could help in that…
Best Regards!
Aron
Hello Peter,
How about this?
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2212348/apple-taking-nokia-browser-wars
iPhone has simplified the compexity of mobile browsing to “cool” levels, but I would still prefer browsing on my E70 if I could have the latest browser for S60 with Flashlite 3 support.
I know that chances are that “you” are NOT gonna give it to me and millions of S60 V3 FP0 users, even if recently Saraa’s quiz confirmed that the browser is “only” an update and contrary to previous messages about fundamental differences between FP0 and FP1 the truth should be that both have the same platform and structure and FP-s differ only in some software packaging and small updates.
So we will not get it and we are stuck with the earlier browser. Which is still nice, but far from that nice as your new browser is, and in FP0 we cannot even save web pages from the web browser…
However the article above points to a direction I have been preaching for more than a year:
The S60 browser is of strategic importance for S60 and providing updates to the S60 V3 FP0 crowd is a must to maintain S60 leadership on the market.
The numbers in the article above show, that you are loosing the browser war to the iPhone, and in light of that, I am shocked that no-one realizes that by simply providing browser upgrades to S60 V3 FP0 you could turn the tide…???!!!
Complexity in your new browser is at the highest possible on the browser market: Full web experience, but in that case full complexity is exactly what is expected.
Best regards!
Aron
Hello,
There is a shark in the browser see waters. Or should I say in the tea?
Teashark is offering webkit based browsing in java, which looks fantastic on my E70 large resolution screen.
These guys have copied you pretty well and have outdone the S60 browser in a thing or two.
On the other side of the coin there is a new Flash lite 3 capable browser available for the N95.
Tell me Peter! You provide widgets for FP1 phones when that was anounced to be an FP2 feature.
Why don’t you give us FP0 users the same browser?
According to Sara’s bluetooth headset questionary, there is no big gap between FP0 and FP1, and these should be the same platforms with different packaging of software.
So why don’t we get the Flash lite 3 browser for FP0 phones, when the FP1 guys get it although they not supposed to have Widgets which come along with it?
Regards!
Aron