Monthly Archive for August, 2008

If Mobile is the remote, what does it control?

Published
by
Darren Twiss
on August 16, 2008
in emerging technology, mobile context and wireless sensor networks
. 0 Comments

There is always much talk about the humble mobile as “The remote control to our lives”. Well that’s a bit ambiguous, exactly what is it the remote control for? Well here is a bit of a glimpse into the future.

MIT’s Technology Review has just published a list of the 10 Emerging Technologies for 2008, [thanks to About Mobility for the heads-up].

“Reality Mining”, as you might expect for an Emerging Technology is a broad field. The basic idea is that as we go about our daily lives we leave/have available bits of information which can be used (through techniques like data mining) to determine various relationships about what we are doing, who we are and/or contribute to a better understanding or measurement of the world around us.

In mobile design the idea of Mobile Context is probably a subset of Reality Mining.

The MIT article gives a couple of interesting examples from suggesting things to do or new people to meet, automatically determining privacy settings, determining a better understanding of the spread of diseases or even using built in accelerometers to detect the onset of Parkinson’s disease. The possibilities are really exciting and is really only made possible by the ubiquity of mobile device technology.

My view is that the mobile handset is the “Front End” or “User Interface” for a data-rich or augmented world. I think the “Back End” is going to be a the various pieces of computing intelligence embedded within our environment (like Wireless Sensor Networks, i.e ZigBee) that collect and process data and communicate it back to the “Front End”. The applications for which will be a mix or personal, commercial and environmental factors.

Exciting Stuff.

[Updated: Links to more ideas or exmaples ]

Why Mobile Context Is The Key Design Parameter

Published
by
Darren Twiss
on August 7, 2008
in mobile context and mobile web
. 5 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mobile Context having recently been involved in designing various mobile products and applications.

So what is context? Well a definition I like is:

“the relevant constraints and unique opportunity of the communicative situation”.

Basically,

  • Where, When, Why and How will my mobile application be used and by Who?
  • What constraints does this place on the design?
  • What opportunity does this context provide and how can I use this to my advantage?

Regardless of the mobile application, be it Mobile Web, a Handset Application, Messaging or devices that interact with mobiles,  I believe context will emerge as the most important design parameter. Traditional software and web-design hasn’t yet required this kind of consideration as the context of the user is generally known (i.e the user is normally seated, has a full screen and keyboard and uses a mouse for navigation).

Context and The Mobile Web

An example of Mobile Web Context is a airnz.mobi, the newly launched mobile website for Air New Zealand. Recently, I needed to find arrival details for my Wife’s flight so I could pick her up at the airport. I used my desktop browser to try and find these details and logged onto the full airnewzealand.co.nz website. I searched around (in a hurry) but couldn’t find them. I switched to my mobile as I left the house and visited their mobile site. The front page has a menu of which “Arrivals and Departures” is the first option. In fact the entire site only contains a subset of content, arranged in a way that is useful for people who are mobile or traveling. That is context in action.

Another great way of thinking about mobile context and user experience on the mobile web is Google’s Mobile User Experience Strategy (full article at Information Week)

Google breaks down mobile web users into 3 categories:

  1. “Repetitive now”
  2. “Bored now”
  3. “Urgent now”

The “repetitive now” user is someone checking for the same piece of information over and over again, like checking the same stock quotes or weather. Google uses cookies to help cater to mobile users who check and recheck the same data points.

The “bored now” are users who have time on their hands. People on trains or waiting in airports or sitting in cafes. Mobile users in this behavior group look a lot more like casual Web surfers, but mobile phones don’t offer the robust user input of a desktop, so the applications have to be tailored.

The “urgent now” is a request to find something specific fast, like the location of a bakery or directions to the airport. Since a lot of these questions are location-aware, Google tries to build location into the mobile versions of these queries.

My airport example fits in to “Urgent Now” category. The “urgent now” description also touches on the role of Location in context. That is something that I hope to share some thoughts on soon. (in the meantime checkout Musings of a mobile marketer’s thought on the topic of “Location Based Services - Are they all missing the point?”)

To conclude,  Context is a major design parameter. Designers must give consideration to Where, When, Why and How their application will be used and by who. For Mobile Web in particular, the site design and the content must give consideration to the user’s context. Simply miniaturizing a full desktop website without any thought to the purpose of a mobile site is in my opinion, a waste of time.