|
|
Postings about the mobile user experience
 
I'll be teaching a "WAP Design" full-day course in London and New York this December.
This course is for designers who want to know how to design for today's phones, using today's mobile browsers. It is filled with examples and exercises geared to ready designers for immediate success.
WAP Design includes XHTML, CSS, and .mobi issues in a designer-focused course covering the following topics:
* WAP Overview
* WAP, including XHTML, CSS, and .mobi
* Successful and Unsuccessful WAP Sites
* Requirements Gathering for Design
* Competitive Analysis of Desktop and Mobile Web Sites
* Mobile Design Patterns
* Expert Design Guidelines
* WAP Design Toolbox
* Wireframing
* Paper Prototyping
More Info
Register for London: 3 December, 2007
Register for New York: 11 December, 2007
 TBWA\Chiat\Day outdid themselves for Nissan's Altima Coupe ad, featured at left. It's beautiful, fascinating, modern, and makes you want to buy a cellphone that looks like a bunch of little cars! I loved it so much that one of my staff got permission from Nissan for me to use the image here on Handheld Usability. I think it indicates how technology can inspire art--just like art can inspire technology. Bang and Olufsen is the firm that most often comes to mind when one thinks of art-inspired technology.
The artwork in the Altima Coupe ad inspired our graphics for the WAP Design course. Molly Bowman created the logos for London & New York.
What is it about the cell phone that inspires art? Is it that the device keeps us in touch, is ever-present in our pocket or purse, and has so many sense-inspiring features? We feel the devices, see them (and their screens), hear them... We don't taste or smell them thankfully, but they satisfy the other three senses beautifully.
It's interesting that touch screens lack that sense of feel--except those that use Immersion's VibeTonz technology, which makes touch screens "feel" like they've been pressed when buttons are activated.
 At Mobile HCI in Singapore in September, Songyee Yoon from SK Telecom keynoted about digital convergence, and service proliferation. She presented the T Interactive solution that you see above. Apologies for the scratchy pictures, which are from my digital camera from the audience.
T Interactive pushes content to the idle screen, with overnight downloads of content, free of charge. The content is then shown throughout the day without requiring further downloads. One example is Cizle, a movie ticketing service that shows advertising for new movies for which customers can buy tickets.
With search, search results are providing a single result, the nearest, instead of a list of many. Searching for Starbucks in their old design provided 169 results on 19 pages. The new design provides a single result with a map to it, with links to other locations.
The "After" solution looks a whole lot better, though it actually looks as if one of the links in the "Before" image was clicked. I would prefer to see a set of information above the map, with links below it. Above the map, I'd list the address and cross street, business hours, and a short review. Below the map, I'd list the phone number (linked for a call), the directions links, and "More search results for 'Starbucks'".
 "Handheld Usability" was obviously the predecessor to "Designing the Mobile User Experience." The shame of it is that Barbara Ballard and Scott Weiss (your humble blogger) did not collaborate to produce a second edition, sharing both of their insights. Instead, Ballard writes the same book, but in 2007 instead of 2002, with many of the same weaknesses, and many of the same strengths. Readers who liked "Handheld Usability" will enjoy "Designing the Mobile User Experience," but will be frustrated by the lack of detailed WAP design advice. Also missing is detailed advice for FlashLite, UIOne, SVG, tat, Java, and other environments. Ballard is a very strong writer, with very strong opinions. Fortunately, she is very smart and knowledgeable, with extensive experience working at Sprint and since providing services to Sprint. Wiley did her a disservice by printing the book in black and white, and does a crazy disservice to readers by charging so much for the book. However, designers who want to learn about mobile will benefit from this book. Experienced mobile designers will be frustrated, as they were with "Handheld Usability." Even experienced mobile designers should consider purchasing this book, as a reference and as a supplement to their own knowledge.
Buy Ballard's Book
 New York, NY – August 21, 2007 – Usable Products Company recently completed an independent user experience benchmark on Mobile Search. Eighty participants evaluated three text-based and one voice-enabled mobile search solution resulting in several unexpected insights about the preferences of today’s mobile search users. Researchers were surprised that 79% of participants favored advertising-supported mobile search, and 37% felt that banner ads actually enhanced the mobile search user experience. Paid and sponsored text based ads proved most detrimental to user experience.
Also unexpected was that participants initially predicted voice search would be the most difficult to use but after an hour of usage gave it higher ratings than text search. According to Scott Weiss, president of Usable Products, “Users predicted voice search would be the worst of the four search products, but in final usability, it performed better than expected. We were surprised that participants enjoyed voice search, and how much more they liked it than searching via phone keypad.”
“Mobile search is in its early stages, with many opportunities for improvement. While participants averaged an impressive 88 percent success rate in submitting mobile search queries, only 53 percent found relevant results. Participants who found what they were looking for averaged 143 seconds to submit queries and find answers,” said Weiss. “None of the four search solutions was a clear winner. Our researchers have developed 25 Best Practices, which if followed, are likely to dramatically increase user satisfaction in mobile phone searches.”
The four mobile search solutions benchmarked were: InfoSpace WAP, JumpTap Java (Alltel Axcess Search), Nuance Voice Control, and Yahoo! Go. Participants each used a single mobile search product to check a horoscope, weather, a stock quote, find a restaurant, check a sports score, and find a ring tone. Success, time to complete, and user perceptions were tracked. 20 one-hour usability interviews were conducted for each search product.
“Mobile Search User Experience Benchmark” spans 179 pages and is delivered in print and on CD ROM, with 25 best practices, 76 charts, 32 demonstration videos of mobile search in action, 34 usability video clips, and hundreds of high resolution photographs. It is available for immediate sale from http://usableproducts.com.
|
|
