mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

One of my favorite conferences last year, the MEX Mobile User Experience Conference, has published its agenda for this years’ conference on May 27-28 in London. Check the agenda and speaker list for full details.

A special discount is offered to mTrends readers (check details at the bottom of this post).

The conference helps executives to gain a deeper understand of customer behaviour and translate that knowledge into better mobile products. The key objective is raising awareness of user experience issues as a strategic priority for everyone in the value chain, encouraging the mobile business to put consumer needs at the heart of the industry.

It is a very different style of conference. Each event is researched and developed by a team with a passion for mobile and unique insight drawn from years of industry experience. Corporate pitches are outlawed, everyone plays a role in setting the agenda and we go to extraordinary lengths to provide the highest standards of service.

This years’ conference programme is based around a 10 point Manifesto (download pdf here) for enhancing the mobile user experience. Each of the 10 Manifesto statements is addressed through a diverse range of presentations, panel discussions and collaborative breakout groups.

Topics include…

1. Content itself will be the interface of the future
2. Handsets are no longer just for the hand
3. Fragmentation is the enemy of innovation
4. Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality
5. The developing world is the new frontier for mobile user experience
6. Search requires a radically different approach in the mobile environment
7. Intelligent contact lists are the future centres of the user interface
8. Mobile payments herald the next generational shift
9. Users as individuals: uniquely complex and contradictory
10. The potential of smart voice

Some of the speakers include:

On the opening night there is also a reception to announce the Winners of the 2008 MEX Design Competition. Check it out, some really great stuff out there! If you design interfaces and have a compelling idea or product to delight customers and enhance the mobile user experience, you can still participate, the deadline for entries is 23:00 GMT, Friday, 2nd May 2008.

MEX is now less than 5 weeks away and, as with all previous MEX events, the organizers target to sell out well in advance on the conference date. If you’ve not yet reserved your place at the event, now is the time to do so - passes are selling out fast.

mTrends readers can get a 10% discount on a conference attendance pass (priced at GBP 1499). Go to the registration form and enter ‘MM24′ in the ‘partner code’ box on the registration form.

Hope to see you there!

“Understanding Consumers and delivering exceptional customer service is just as important a part of the mobile experience as the latest technology and the size of the marketing budget, it can be a key differentiator for a business”… was a perfect kick-off quote in the presentation of Cliff Crosbie (see image left) at the MEX: the Mobile User Experience conference some weeks ago in London.

The report and all presentations of this unique and excellent conference are now available here (buy on-line for GBP 795). The report harnesses the combined knowledge of some 100 leading mobile executives who attended the MEX conference in May 2007. Delegates participated in a series of keynote presentations, panel discussions and breakout groups to define a response to the MEX manifesto. From this rich pool of creativity and exclusive research notes, Marek Pawlowski and his team have produced a detailed analysis of the industry’s approach to mobile user experience, a must have for anyone working in the mobile industry or for any internet, content or media company who has plans going mobile in the near future - if you haven’t, start asking yourself some questions

The report includes detailed info on each of the 10 topics covered:

• MEX Maps: graphical brainstorm of the conference’s response to the manifesto.
• Speaker’s response: written summary of the keynote presentation.
• Presentation slides: copy of the keynote slides.
• Discussion summary: written summary of the panel discussions and responses from the breakout groups.
• Research notes: thought-provoking articles and detailed research from PMN’s analysts.
• Stat Spot: selection of metrics relating to the manifesto topic.

For me personally, the conference was a really good experience, not only because of the zen environment the conference was held at (Wallaspace) but above all Marek and his team have done a great job in preparing this conference with a unique feel for detail and attention to create a good athmosphere, ideal to foster collaboration amongst the delegates - an exceptional mix of mobile telecoms industry people, design and other industry experts, startups, etc. A lot of interesting people with different ideas to share and open-minded to think about the challenges this industry is facing: to cope with a rapid and huge shift from ‘voice & text’ devices (mobile 1.0) to truly multimedia devices, soon always connected to the internet (mobile 2.0), to shift from walled gardens business models to open connectivity and services acces.

I’m not going to write down all my notes here from the conference, I enjoyed the interesting and thought provoking presentations from Cliff Crosbie (Nokia), Christian Lindholm, Antti Öhrling, Co-founder of Blyk, Mark Rolston (Frog Design) and the insiders view from Paul Nerger (Argogroup) and Al Russell (Vodafone).

The size of the conference also left enough room to meet and discuss with the other delegates, I met a lot of great new people! The idea of bringing all delegates together in smaller groups to discuss the manifesto and presented topics was a good idea too, this brought extra dynamics and conversations to the overall conference, an idea to continue exploring further in the future.

The 10 MEX Manifesto topics covered and the keynote speaker who inspired the discussions and research:

Download a sample of the MEX 2007 Report

This extract from the MEX 2007 report covers 1 of the 10 issues discussed in the full version: “Understanding the extent of the user experience, from retail environment to customer service.”

For more details and purchase, please contact Marek Pawlowski (marekpawlowski@pmn.co.uk or +44 7767 622957)
Here you can view my Flickr Set of the conference.

Next Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be attending the MEX: The PMN Mobile User Experience conference. MEX is a two day strategy forum for the leading minds in mobile telecoms. At the heart of the conference is the 10 point manifesto for enhancing the mobile user experience. This is a blueprint for delivering better mobile products through a deeper understanding of customer requirements. I’m looking forward to meet and discuss with some great minds in this often overlooked area of the mobile industry, thanks to Marek Pawlowski for setting up this event. Here’s some more info on the event:

“We’ve invited 10 of the industry’s most inspiring speakers to deliver 10 keynote presentations and provoke a series of breakout groups and panel discussions. They’ll address topics ranging from graphical interfaces and industrial design to mobile advertising and customer satisfaction.

Delegates work side-by-side with industry leaders in the unique Wallacespace environment to respond to the manifesto and set the user experience agenda for the mobile telecoms business. All the ideas shared at the conference will be summarised in the MEX 2007 report, a copy of which will be delivered to each delegate after the event.”

Some of the speakers include:

Cliff Crosbie, Global Director of Retail Marketing, Nokia

Al Russell, Head of Mobile Internet & Content Services, Vodafone

Christian Lindholm, User Experience Expert

Matthew Menz, Head of Interaction Design, Motorola

Antti Öhrling, Co-founder, Blyk

Bill Schwebel, Senior Vice President, AOL Wireless & President, Tegic Communications

Paul Nerger, Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Marketing, Argogroup

Markus Grupp, Director, Handset User Experience Design, TELUS

Hampus Jakobsson, Vice President of Marketing, TAT

Dr Nick Allott, CTO, OMTP

Herbert Vanhove, Vice President and General Manager, Qualcomm Internet Services & MediaFLO Technologies”

And a lot of other interesting people, do check the speaker’s list. I’m really looking forward to this one! Anyone who’d like to catch up with me while I’m in London, drop me a line. I will be sharing thoughts and impressions on the conference as ‘lively’ as I can

Last week I have been working on a project with Kelly Goto from gotomedia. Kelly has been at the forefront of web and online usability for 16 years. Kelly and I both share the same vision:

While the wireless market has largely been dependent on the experimentation of the youth culture (especially in Asia) and the early adopter, the next wave of mobile success is dependent on creating sustainable brands, products and services that offer real value in the migration process to mobile.

Mobile usability design and user experience research and testing will be an essential key in helping defining successful mobile business applications and services for companies. The next coming years, any serious business needs to be easy accessible globally through diverse mobile devices and different network technologies.

The success of mobile products lies in the fact they need to be simple to use, they need to work and they need to have a clearly identified added value for the end user. This looks simple ‘on screen’ to write down but mobile professionals know how difficult this is; just look how many mobile products & services fail due to not respecting one of the above reasons…

Until now the mobile usability design space has been merely used by mobile value chain players but the convergence of 3G/UMTS/WiFi networks in combination with the availability of hybrid phones will open a different kind of mobile market space to content providers. The arrival of MVNO’s introduces a new era in mobile. More initiatives are to be expected coming from existing and/or new internet services moving in the mobile market space.

The mobile industry gathered around theW3C’s Mobile Web Initiative is busy working to develop a set of technical best practices and associated materials in support of development of Web sites that provide an appropriate user experience on mobile devices and that is needed.

In order to start a new dialog around web usability and discussions towards mobile, Kelly has launched the gotomobile blog, that will focus on mobile usability, mobile user experience (mUXP) and convergence.

In a recent article on mUXP - mobile user experience, she writes:

“Wireless companies and developers are typically put in the position of either chasing developing trends or taking the costly risk of launching new products and services that may never catch on. How can mobile designers, developers and content providers create effective mobile user experiences with the speed and accuracy required to succeed in the market?”"The answer lies in adopting mUXP, a user-centered approach to mobile authoring that focuses as much on the needs of specific consumer lifestyles as on technical considerations. The purpose of this blog is to provide an overview of both the cultural and technological trends shaping the wireless market from a usability and user centered point-of-view, and to outline best practices for incorporating these factors into the development and deployment of mobile products and services.”

I am encouraging this initiative - and will help guest-writing the blog, because we are talking for more then 5 years about the mobile internet but, personally, still I haven’s seen too many webs, applications or services correctly working on a mobile phone. A lot of work needs to be done still so I think more focused information and disseminating knowledge in this area is valuable for the mobile industry, no doubt about that. What about you?

TAGS: gotomobile gotomedia muxp mobile user experience mobile usability mobile usability design participitary design user-centered design interaction design ethnographics design research mobile web mobile internet contextual research mobile trends mobile life m-trends.org mtrends