S60 Open to new features

A couple of things came to my mind when exploring the voice commands in my new phone. It is relatively easy for a user to call someone by saying the person's name, or to open an application using the voice commands. Unfortunately, voice commands cannot be used for opening any application or view - even though there are quite many alternatives available. Also, after a promising start, having opened an application using a voice command, a user cannot proceed much further using only voice. It would be handy, for example, to start the text message reader using voice command--but this may not be possible (I could not find a way, at least). And it would also be nice if the user could select a speech synthesizer speaking one's mother tongue - at least Finnish messages sound quite funny with the English-speaking synthesizer. :-)

So, while there are interesting voice-related features, they are not used to the extent they could be. Could the user, for example, activate a kind of “voice command profile” in which messages and other texts could be heard? To make it more fun for the user, different kinds of speech synthesizer voices could be offered for listening - maybe even with varying emotional tones. As for emotional expression via mobile, the nature of potential solutions is limited by just one's imagination - as is illustrated by a monkey* developed at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory.

* The page works with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Users often comment that they would like to have a good quality mobile phone camera. Usually taking photos is the only consideration...but what about other ways of using the camera?

In some situations the camera could help a user to "take notes". A user could, for example, take a picture of a book cover that her friend recommended (to later look up further information) or capture the opening hours on a shop door. (These could possibly be stored separately from rest of the photos.)

If this does not seem terribly helpful, what about reading 2D barcodes using one's phone camera? There has been some earlier discussion about this in Tommi’s S60 Application Blog. I tried generating and reading Semapedia tags, which is basically phone-readable barcodes that take you to Wikipedia pages.* Quick and easy.

A mobile user perhaps does not need to browse Wikipedia daily, but the idea could be applied to various everyday situations, e.g. being in a movie theater or video rental store and trying to decide which movie to see. It would be handy to read a barcode on a movie list or on a DVD cover and then instantly receive a link to the movie trailer. For some time, several friends have been waiting and hoping for a phone-readable barcode solution to pay their bills.

Other suggestions?

* Semapedia.org is a "non-profit community-driven project to bring the knowledge from Wikipedia to relevant places in physical space".

One user recently complained during testing: I wish I had more applications available on my Active standby application list (note: the user did not actually say this; he said “…on my primary screen”). Users generally do not like to “travel” too far to do anything on their mobiles. If, for example, they don’t have the Clock application on their shortcut list, they have to complete several steps to actually set an alarm.

One possible solution is to create a more “active” interface. Take again the clock example: What if the clock were an icon to which the user could move the cursor and select the clock? Then the user, without leaving the primary screen, could set her alarm, check her various World clocks etc. And, even better, the user can replace the Clock application on the Active standby application list with another application he uses regularly!

As I started to write a different entry, I wanted to take a screen shot on my mobile device to support a point that I was trying to make. Instead of completing the task, my phone was locked by the same command that was supposed to take a screen shot. So, at least two applications on my phone are "initiated" by pressing the "pen" key and the * button.

So what does this mean for the end user? Installing several applications onto a user's phone may lead to major usability problems later. Does this mean that the user can only install one application at a time? Is the user forced to find out how to work 2 or more applications that require the same shortcut command? This experience needs to be an intuitive one: a user finds an application that appears useful to her, she installs it, she uses it. Because she has a good experience, she goes to find another application; she installs it, and she----doesn't use it, she cannot use it because she can only use that shortcut command to start one application. Is this right?

Somewhat related to Wendy's recent entry, I'd like to address an important issue: control and information security. With advanced mobile devices, it is possible to store various applications and fill the device with personal information. As Wendy pointed out, it should also be easy to remove/delete applications -- and it should be easy to erase private information as well.

A company did an experiment: they bought a number of smart phones from eBay, and checked if they can retrieve personal information from the devices (see their news bulletin).

And they succeeded.

Bank accounts and passwords. Business plans. Personal messages. Calenders. Contacts. And then some. Some of the devices were re-set to factory settings before they were sold second hand, as described in the user's manual. But it was still possible to dig up the personal information. The same kinds of cases have been reported on computer hard drives for years. This may be both a software and a hardware issue, but nevertheless - it's an issue that must be considered.

Fact is: user's invest real money in the devices. When moving on to a new model, they want to sell the old device or give it to a friend or a relative. They should be able to feel secure to pass the device on: how many of you would feel good in buying a new device of the same brand if you just heard your nerdy nephew was able to dig up everything you thought you just deleted?

There must be a better method of "just being sure" than tossing the device to the microwave oven for a few minutes!

From a user experience standpoint, it may be problemmatic that the "To-do" application (at least on many of the S60 mobiles out there) is missing from the Calendar options (and is located in the Office folder). An end user will expect that she can perform any calendar related tasks, e.g. any activity that needs to be completed in the future, from her Calendar application. Instead, many users have to go to the Office folder to create their "to-do" list(s). The other option is that users create a shortcut to the "To-do" list; but then it may seem wasteful (and perhaps frustrating) to the user to have the Calendar and To-do applications both as shortcuts. Any user may be left wondering: Why are they separated when they fall under the same "category"? However, some in contention may respond: Are those things a user puts on his "to-do" list really and truly related and similar to things he puts into his calendar (e.g. memos, meetings and anniversaries)? Perhaps they are they not equal...and therefore they should be separated.

I've been playing around with some different applications recently. I successfully downloaded a HandyKeylock application for the N70 phones. The application was placed in "My Own" folder. I went there and "opened" the file. Nothing happened, except that the screen blinked once and went back to the menu (with the selection still on the HandyKeylock application). Now that I cannot get it to work, I want to delete the file (some of you may ask why, but this is an issue for a psychiatrist!). Is there an easy way to delete applications after you've installed them on your phone? There should be and there better be...but if it is not obvious to me, I don't think it will be so obvious to other users who are even less experienced. The fact is, I would not have wanted to delete the application if it had been more intuitive to use. Nonetheless, the options like "delete" ought to be readily and easily available.

It would be great if I did not have to transfer my images to my computer in such a complicated way. Even if Bluetooth is kind of usable to me, I still feel that the whole process is a burden. I have to force myself to do it - to turn the BT on in both the devices, to select the images (which is so slow) and accept the reception in the computer.

How about having a one-touch image transfer process? I could for example have a small flat gadget permanently attached to my computer with a cable. Every time I put my phone on this small blanket, my phone would automatically copy all my images to my particular image folder in my computer? I could leave the device lying there for a while and come back and *know for sure* that everything is fine.

Bluetooth is not that complicated as infrared used to be. Yes, I used IrDA for long to transfer my mobile phone images into my computer - imagine how long it took and - even worse - I needed to keep the phone steady next to the infrared port. I always had to place my phone on a thin book so that the visual connection between the devices was exactly right. In that sense, BT is a clear step forward. But still, could I have something smoother :-) ?

I read some very interesting, yet expected, findings from a British survey in an article yesterday: British mobile users are not actively or thoroughly searching for mobile content. Usability problems of long download time and difficult navigation were the primary reasons. This, of course, was not what mobile content creators had hoped and wished for.

The bottom line is that users are not searching for content on their mobile devices in the same manner as they would on the Internet: on the Internet, users browse; on their mobile devices, users look for specific information. According to the survey findings, users do not want to spend the same amount of time surfing the web on their mobiles that they do on their PCs (perhaps this is also related to cost). As mentioned above, this may be primarly due to the amount of time it takes to find the information (and lack of time the mobile user has to find it). Fortunately, users from the study indicated that they would consume more content if it was faster and inexpensive to do so.

So what does this mean for our S60 users? Is it a waste of time to develop web browsers, content, services etc? Or, can something be done/created to help mobile users? How can it be ensured that their experiences with the web via their mobiles will be quick (download time) and easy (navigation)? I guess the final question is about cost: To what extent does the cost (of waiting and searching) have to do with the non-consumption of mobile content? If the cost is covered, will mobile content consumption increase?

As Riitta and Maija already mentioned, there's a few fresh faces contributing to this blog - nice to meet you! My focus is on efficient use of the S60 device; cutting corners, finding alternative ways of performing tasks and generally taking the most out of the device. This focus may be due to my inherit laziness and desire to do things simply - or perhaps the slow and sunny Finnish summer is getting to me!

In my opinion, shortcuts and alternative paths are not for PowerUsers (TM) only. This is why they should not be secrets hidden under the OS hood. Regular users getting to know S60 should be encouraged to try out alternative ways of performing their everyday tasks; this makes them more at home with their device. And this has everything to do with User Experience.

Onto my topic today: do we need the S60 menu in our everyday use, or could we do completely without it?

Looking at my N70, I have a wealth of options I can do right from the main display. With a little customization, I can launch all the applications I need without opening the menu. Let's see the options I have:

- 2 softkeys
- 5 application shortcuts in the active standby (aka active idle) mode
- access to the calender from the active standby
- the multimedia key (long press to change the settings!)
- access to the call log with the green dial key
- ability to launch the browser with long press of 0

That's access up to 11 applications right there! Did I miss something? And, do you still have a reason to browse the menu in your everyday use?

Oh yeah - something I really like with the N70: the best (and simplest!) shortcut is behind the camera; simply slide the cover to launch the camera. That's so great!