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We all know the importance of being able to develop an application, with excellent user experience, that's cool but functional, functional but not boring, unique but still consistent, makes your boss happy, supports brands main values…and, it wouldn't hurt, if it could make coffee as well. And when we're talking about mobile devices such as the S60, it becomes even more important—almost inevitable. "But why oh why?" yells the audience. And the audience is surprised to receive an immediate and ultimate answer: because more and more users are novice.
At this moment you can almost hear that low level humm-mmm generated by the process of receiving these new, novice S60 users. And it's not their fault. We are delighted to have huge S60 sales numbers (see graph below).
However, the fact is that consumers with less and less technological experience are purchasing more and more complex devices. Smart devices like S60 are becoming "all in one devices" as we are witnessing integration of communication, audio, video, information and other content. And this is just beginning, S60 devices are able to communicate with your TV, car, radio, PIM, family, house, summer cottage—and I wouldn't be surprised if one could make some cappuccino with his/her S60. Why not, coffee's popular. This all comes to one of the hottest words today among S60—yeah you guessed—convergency. I'll discuss more of it later but in short: today is really the day to think about convergence and how your application could take advantage of it, about how it translates in real life.
For me, all of this is synonymous with taking the user experience into consideration as a realistic and functional part of all development, from strategic planning to concept creation, development and marketing. It's not anymore the high level do's and don’ts or speculation about how humans and computers behave when they meet—it’s a concrete part of developers’ lives with tools and methods that make the S60 developer’s life better. How? Well, may the conversation begin!
Although accessing the internet is possible with most of mobile phones today, still very few use it—at least here in Finland. I took a quick poll one day when I was having dinner in a restaurant with some friends, asking them if they’ve browsed the web with their mobiles and, if so, whether they did it regularly. Ten out of 12 had tried using the web, and only 3 used their phone for finding information on the web on a daily basis. Here’s the kicker: these people I asked were no grannies, but young people working daily with computers!!
The most common reasons why people did not use their phone for browsing the web was that their phone or subscription did not allow them to do it or they felt they had no need for it. The three people that used the web with their hand sets checked their e-mail (“I don’t have computer at home”), looked for place and route information (“When I’m lost, I want to see the map”), loaded and played games (“You know there are these S60 versions of old Commodore 64 games that I download and play”) and read news.
One of my “respondents”, who had never tried to access the web with a mobile phone, had a Nokia 6680. She was not sure whether her phone was capable of an internet connection and said that she had not even been interested in finding out since she has broadband connection and a computer, both at home and at work. We still encouraged her: “Just press the zero for a while and you’ll get connected”. She got on to her operator’s home page, with the browser in a full screen mode “How do I get away from here, there’s just this whole page. I want to turn off this thing. I don’t like that it spends all my money and runs in the background”, she cried. I explained to her that the time is not the cost but the data transferred. However, she did not care – she just wanted out. But getting out was not so easy since the full screen mode did not show the Options- and Exit-labels that are typically visible on the browser. I think the browsing experience was not too inviting for her. Wonder if she’s gonna try it again?
Continue reading "Why is mobile web-browsing so unpopular?" »The other day I introduced this discussion. Now I will finally tell you about the first step…In the requirements phase, the concept is defined and the idea of the application is tested. To validate that the concept is viable and that the product will be usable, the product concept should be evaluated against the guidelines.
End-user analysis: Find out if users are interested and if there is genuine need for the product in the market.
Guidelines: Define the specific usability requirements that must be met in order to have a usable and potentially successful product.
Does this make sense to you? Do you think there is another way to begin?
I was thinking about something this weekend, as I was trying to learn more about my S60 device—I am one of those users who is unwilling to read the User Guide unless I desperately need an answer or something is clearly not working. So I generally learn by playing around and/or other, more experienced users offer me tips.
What do you think about S60 users? Do you think that most of them purchase the phone because of all the features etc. that come with the S60 device, because the phone looks/is cool or because their friend recommended a phone that happened to be a S60 phone? I think the answer to this question has everything to do with how to develop S60 in the future.
Did you know that there is a conference dedicated completely for mobile human-computer interaction? MobileHCI conference brings together both academics and practitioners working on user-friendly mobile services and products. This year the conference will be organized in Espoo, Finland on the 12th - 15th of September 2006.
It is worth mentioning that MobileHCI 2006 includes also industrial case studies and demonstrations and not just academic papers. The industrial design cases will be attached to conference proceedings, which is rather a unique way to emphasize the importance of work done in industry. The deadline for industrial case studies, demonstrations, short papers, posters and panels is on the 7th of May 2006.
For those of you who have resonded to Maija's entry, she is very excited to respond but is presently away on winter vacation. So please be patient--she will be returning on Monday! Thanks.
Lately, I have often found myself in answering one particular question: how to make user friendly mobile applications with minimum budgets and tight schedules? There are no short cuts but the flow identified in our earlier studies works as a good starting point.
In one study mobile phone game developers were interviewed about product development and their needs and practices were integrated into a single model. This model can be applied to other mobile application development as well.
Each of these phases has recommended methods to ensure that users remain at the center of development. I will talk in detail about these steps over the next week. I’m sure you’ll be waiting anxiously!!
Have you ever walked through the city streets of an unfamiliar country? Do you remember the first time that you sent an SMS communication? (Have you ever witnessed a non-Finn experience her first Finnish sauna?!) Basically, have you ever entered a situation in which familiar rules and roles no longer apply? Suddenly everything seems to be different; all of your energy goes toward learning new rules of interaction. This is what consumers (AKA users) face when they begin to use new mobile devices, software, applications etc. Importantly, for the developer, the way in which users learn and adopt new roles and rules vary by culture.
To create a successful mobile device, product design must consider these issues right from the start. The most significant part of designing an application is paying attention to the target users and their needs; adding culture into the mix raises the endeavor to a whole new level. In essence, emotional and motivational needs have a direct impact on the usability and success of a design. And, since user needs vary by culture, interaction with a product does too.
When designing for culturally diverse user groups, developers should consider the following development process steps:
* Identify all target cultures
* Design and develop a global model that takes common designs into account
* Bring in a culture-specific interface designer to revise the design
* Conduct usability tests with culturally targeted versions
To create the best product, developers must put users at the centre of the design process. One possible way to expedite this goal is to have representatives from target cultures take part in the product development phase. Although it is not possible to develop a product to meet the needs of every user group, developers should have a clear idea of how the product should work with at least one user group in mind. If the product is designed to work globally, it will win a bigger market and generate greater profit - not to mention a better user experience.
This entry is based on an article originally published on Forum Nokia: http://www.forum.nokia.com/html_reader/main/1,,4752,00.html
Growing competition in the mobile application market has increased the urgency of meeting user needs. Success in developing usable products requires that usability be designed into the product right from the start. Like basic software engineering, usability engineering is an iterative process that has several stages, all the way from getting to know the user to collecting feedback after actual use.
Throughout these stages, appropriate methods and tools can be used to meet phase requirements. The costs, work required, and results of the methods vary, and certain methods are more suitable for particular situations.
Continue reading "The flow of usability" »Hi all!
In my very first blog entry in this blog I’ll tell you what happened to me when I was introduced to a S60 phone.
My first interaction with an S60 phone happened quite late in my life, about 2 1/2 years ago. It was not a good start for our relationship since this S60 phone (from work) was a Nokia 3650 with the "round" keypad. Oh god, that was hard to get used to!
I'm not a patient user—in fact, I’m very impatient. If something does not work for me right away, I abandon it. This is what happened with the 3650. Behind my boss's back I put the S60 phone (that he wanted me to use) to my drawer and started using my simple and small Series 40 phone again. (Hopefully he won’t read this...:).
Then, about a year later, I started using an S60 phone voluntarily, the Nokia 6630. It was, and is, a basic ok phone that I was able to use without getting annoyed. Of course, since I had been a Series 40 user for a very long time, I had some adjustment problems in the beginning.
Overall, I felt that my old Series 40 phone had been more straight forward than my new S60 phone. With my ex-phone I had done simple step-wise choices to complete my tasks, whereas with the S60 I felt I had to go through different kinds of menus and forms prior to conducting a task (e.g. sending a quick SMS). The S60 phone felt more like a computer than a mobile phone to me: yes, it had more features and options…but it took me a longer time to complete my simple tasks.
Sending a text message with the S60 phone sent my blood pressure soaring (or at least it felt like that!) multiple times. As a Series 40 user, I was accustomed to entering the recipient’s phone number after writing the message. However, as we all know, this is not the way you do it with S60. Even though I knew I had already written the person’s number in the message before writing it, I hesitated and had to think about it many times before getting used to this new process.
These were my problems when I first started using an S60 phone. It would be nice to hear if anyone else has had similar (or different :) problems, when they were introduced to the S60 interface. I’ve heard at least that some people have had the same problem with the SMS logic…
//maija
Welcome to the newest S60 blog. This weblog concentrates on User Experiences issues and there are five authors. You can find our introductions on the About page.
We all work in user research and user experience creation, so we spend our days meeting regular end-users and consulting product developers, marketers, designers on how their products and services become better - and more sellable. It is clear that we do no reveal any confidential issues here, but our experience in the field enables us to share some basic principles with others.
I hope you enjoy reading this blog. Please join us discussing the user experiences - comment our posts!
Once more, welcome!
