S60 Open to new features

Hi S60 enthusiasts! I’m Joonas, a fresh addition to the blog contributors. I’ll kick off with one of my favourite applications: Contacts aka Phone Book aka Address Book. The application is vital for me. It’s my vault of contacts, addresses, phone numbers and birthdays. It has replaced my memory. However, it’s not a particularly easy memory to use.

New technology leads to new innovations and application concepts. When the technologies mature and become commonly available, users can reap the benefits and enjoy the new services and experiences.

One of the things I personally look forward to is the continuation of the location-based services boom. As the writings on the wall suggest, device manufacturers are taking steps toward increasing the focus of location services - perhaps the time of having integrated GPS/Galileo-capable devices from major manufacturers is sooner than we think!

New technology brings new concepts and killer applications. With something as revolutionary as location data, there are plenty of innovative applications out there, waiting to be discovered.

Example. Being an enthustiastic photographer, I just love the idea of combining digital photos with geotagging (basically, adding location metadata to the image - technically quite simple). So, a few years from now, when look on my collection of thousands (and thousands) of unorganized digital images, I can smile and enter queries such as: "Organize the images according to the city where the picture was taken" or even "show me all the pics I've taken in Europe, excluding that awful trip to Manchester in 2002". So simple, so effective.

What could the next mobile big hit be?

Downloading third party applications should be and, in most cases, is an easy task to do. In this way users can tailor their devices and take their mobile lives easily onto the next level. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. I have lately witnessed a lot of frustrating moments when the device informs the user that this applications is not trusted and can’t be downloaded properly. I understand the business logic behind this, but has it gone too far? Is it possible that the existing model builds barriers to the innovations? Small companies or independent developers could be blocked out too easily. Things like Linux would not have had a chance to grow and, I’m pretty sure, the Www would look pretty different if it has been purely commercial project from very beginning. On the other hand, I don’t want to import the Internet mess onto to my mobile. So what can we do?

Sun is shining; summer vacation is around the corner, some difficulties to keep up the tempo… And suddenly idea about perfect summer application came up my mind. What sort of application would be the ideal one? For Finns, like me, the summer application of 2006 could include the following features at least: Those of you who didn’t know the summers can be quite rainy and time spent in summer cottages (usually without luxuries but still the most common way to spend holidays), could be… let’s say challenging (hey 2-4 weeks with your family in small cottage :). So let’s include massive entertainment package (games, internet access, mobile TV and music) and services that makes life little easier.

Being able to extend a phone with 3rd party applications is often seen as the key benefit of the S60 platform. It’s easy to understand why this characteristic has become so popular in marketing the S60: who would not want to have a phone that suits your needs and daily tasks even better?

From the user’s perspective there are, however, a couple of steps in the purchasing-installing-using process that make the utilization of these applications harder than it should be (this is based on my experiences as a researcher and user– and not on any particular research). These steps include:

1. Finding these applications seems to be quite hard for most of the potential users. The applications are just “out there” and only some people with special knowledge about technological things find their way there. Applications that an average user most probably finds are the ones on the Seiska's back cover (a gossip magazine in Finland).

2. When the user wants to change her phone, the problems begin: Will I be able to move these applications, themes etc. (that I have already payed for) to my new device? How can I do it? Where are the installation files? On my phone’s memory, on the memory stick, as a attachment in a message or have I deleted them?

I have met users who have simply accepted that they can’t utilize the applications they purchased because they don’t know if it’s possible or how they could do it if it were possible.

I think the following things could be done in order to enhance the User Experience of 3rd party applications:

1. Organizing and storing files should be more intuitive in S60. Most people store and organize files in folders, why could this not be the case with S60?

2. In each application there could be a built-in option like “Move this application to another device”.

Naturally there are ways to handle these issues (like the PC suite and File Manager), but it does not seem to be intuitive enough for an average user...

I have two browsers on my mobile phone: the Opera Mini and the N70 in-built browser. I prefer to use the Opera Mini because it is easier to use, looks nicer and is just more handy. Lately, however, I have found my self launching the built-in browser more often. Why is this? The answer is simple: The Opera Mini does not show all the pages I want to access, whereas the in-built browser does.

This is a good example of what actually counts the most in the User Experience of mobile data services: Technology that works. Good usability and interaction is naturally what we aim for, but it does not help if the technology does not allow the user to complete her tasks. This is connecte to Jesse’s previous entry in which he states: “What I really looked for was an application or service that could offer a combination of WAP or text TV and mobile TV. I don’t need result information with hyper graphics, just the data.”

I hope that some day I will have the user interface of the Opera Mini (there is actually the v2 available, probably I need to check that out) and the technology of my built-in browser--in one package. How about you?

An interesting piece of news was published today in Finland. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland had asked people to innovate new mobile applications. This happened in April. By the end of May they got - believe it or not - more than 37000 ideas out of which 2000 is said to be top level.

I am very curious to know what these ideas are like... I wish they will surprise us in a positive sense. Or are they going to give the ideas to companies only for further development?

The temperature is rising and its time to get ready. I’m not one of those lucky ones who has a possibility to spend the next month in Germany but I try to live with this. Yesterday I started to look for a wonderful mobile solution which will keep me up to date and provide access to match highlights. And guess what? There wasn’t an appropriate solution available (here in Finland). A quick surfing on the web didn’t prompt any suitable solution and I started to wonder if I’m just a stupid user or if the mobile services have died after the crazy years of late 90s. I know Finland is an ice hockey country... but still.

What I really looked for was an application or service that could offer a combination of WAP or text TV and mobile TV. I don’t need result information with hyper graphics, just the data. Only game highlights would be nice to see as video clips – I guess it is impossible to describe the moves of Ronaldinho in 160 symbols or something… And wasn’t this the reason to have a device with large display in the first place? I was probably looking for some application that would be easy and fast to use and would be dedicated to the World Cup. Is this too much to ask?

Of course I know there is an official version available on the World Cup site but it didn’t convince me totally. At least the videos are missing, the UI is not the most user-friendly one and designers could have spent more time creating a high speed service, which is one of the most critical features in mobile content usage. A good start but there’s still a lot to do. I’m sure there is someone who already knows where to start!

What stops us creating new totally unforeseen applications for mobile devices? Why are there no services that truly change the life of consumers? How come the use of features is mainly limited to SMS, calendar, alarm clock, and camera? (Use of mobile email may be growing now. I haven’t seen the latest statistics.)

What is striking about the nature of those most popular features is that they tend to be mobile versions of something that already exists. The short text messages are the only feature that was truly innovative (although not really since I used to send little paper messages to my friends at the age of 10). So, in the sense, the mobile society is not very radical in its foundations.

To alter people’s behaviour radically would require something unforeseen. We can continue adding computer-originated or non-digital features into mobile devices but these “innovations” may remain as quite limited specialities. (You can, of course, ask why we should change the behaviour.)

I think convergence of activities is one answer. Not convergence of devices – then we just see mouse-phones to store shelves. But convergence of practices.

I’m one of those people who are quite lazy about reading e-mails. If I’m working on a computer I might answer quickly, but it’s not a problem for me to forget to check my mailbox for days (I mean now my personal mailbox). I forget to delete messages and end up having loads of them in my mailbox (at the moment it contains 804 messages).

Having my e-mail on my mobile has made this e-mail thing a whole lot easier. Now I receive the e-mails one by one and I react to them (mostly delete) more easily and immediately. But of course, being a UE Specialist, I need to have something to be concerned and annoyed about :) Actually I’m not alone with my findings: I talked to a couple of my colleagues (ok, they are UE Specialist too, I have to admit) and we all agreed that the inbuilt e-mail reader of S60 phones (at least on N70) has some major usability problems. Here are the two major ones (in the order of importance):

1) It’s very hard to see which messages are new and which are already accessed. There is a small icon on the right side of the message (I wish I had a screen capture program) that is supposed to indicate if the message is new or already read. I’ve never seen such a slight difference between two icons. The icon for a read and unread message is the same with the exception that when the message is new there are two black pixels added to the top right corner of the icon. Two pixels!!! I really don’t get it, do you???!!!

2) It’s hard to know your location in the list of messages. The messages just rotate on the screen when you scroll up/down and the beginning/end of the list is not being indicated in any way. It’s very confusing.

The good thing about these problems is that they are really easy to fix. It would be much more harmful for the User Experience of the service if the whole idea of mobile e-mail was not useful. Because the service is useful, I'll continue using it, even though it's not completely usable. That's one reason why we talk about User Experience, instead of just usability: it covers all the things that affect the user's experience when (s)he is using a product.

Yours,
Maija