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This is one of a series of guest articles by Marek Pawlowski, Editorial Director at PMN and founder of the MEX conference, examining the key mobile user experience issues facing the telecoms industry in 2008. These themes are highlighted in PMN’s 2008 MEX Manifesto and will be at the heart of the agenda for the 4th annual MEX conference in London on 27th - 28th May 2008.

Mobile phones were traditionally designed with the comfort of the ear in mind. The original Motorola flips, the Nokia ‘banana phone’ and the numerous chunky ‘bricks’ of the 1990s were all built primarily around the need for a device which could be held to the face for extended periods of time. If we look at how the market has evolved today, the design requirements are very different because phones are as much about visual activites like texting, email, photos and web pages as they are about the traditional function of voice.

Consider the ratio of screen size verus the overall ‘face’ area of the device. Over time, displays have come to dominate the main interaction surface of the mobile phone. If you could track this ratio over the lifetime of the mobile industry, it would show a steadily increasing trend, starting with the single line ‘dot matrix’ displays of the 1980s and rising through to the massive screens of the iPhone, Prada phone, Viewty and HTC Touch.

The iPhone and its touchscreen have ushered in a boom for the UI design industry. Faced with Apple as a new competitor, rival handset manufacturers are recruiting UI experts as never before. Spurred in to action by the fear of being left behind, management teams throughout the device business are now mandating a selection of touchscreen products in their portfolio. iPhone sales volumes may still be less than a single digit percentage of the market, but there is no doubting the device has established a new design benchmark.

This sudden willingness to embrace the touchscreen is providing UI designers with more scope than ever before to create flexible interaction layers which adapt to provide the best interface method for individual applications.

What we are seeing is the digitisation of the man machine interaction (MMI) layer and the consequences will be profound.

The iPhone was the first device brave enough to implement the MMI entirely in software. In doing so, Apple prompted the industry to consider what could be achieved once it was freed from having to interact with every application through the same three or four hardware buttons.

The manufacturers with an established and consistent DNA for hardware-based MMI are now pondering how they can maintain the value of their existing investment in MMI consistency and still introduce new innovations with the same ‘wow’ factor as the Apple UI. It’s a very tough question and one that is currently keeping a huge number of UI designers and consultants in well paid work!

However, while UI teams around the world are getting to grips with this major strategic issue, I would like to sound two notes of warning.

Firstly, a funky new UI is never the answer to all your user experience problems - there’s no silver bullet. Any new UI or MMI innovations must be part of an overall commitment to user experience. This is the most fundamental principle of everything we do with our MEX research and consultancy work - it is also the main theme of our 2008 MEX conference and the MEX Design Competition.

User experience is not a set of technologies or a layer within the product design process: it is about having a customer-centred approach at the heart of everything you do, from marketing strategy to after-sales support.

You need only spend a couple of hours with the a device like the HTC Touch to recognise that, however attractive the top layer of the UI, the overall user experience will be fatally flawed if you don’t invest in the deep level of integration required to make a new interaction methodology really work.

Secondly, the priorities of interaction design are about to change again. Handsets will no longer just be for the hand (this is one of 10 key Manifesto statements for the 2008 MEX conference).

The mobile phone started as a device for the ear and has since become a device that is also for the eye. In both of these scenarios, the consistent factor is that the phone remains cradled in the palm of the hand - in 30 years of mobile handset design, this has been one of the few constants.

Finally, that is starting to change. Driven by applications like mapping, music, video and tele-conferencing, the handset is increasingly migrating from our palms and finding a new place in the environment around us.

We are starting to see phones attached to the car dashboard or pumping out music from the bookshelf of a teenager’s bedroom. They are being propped up on tables so kids can watch videos on holiday and plugged in to TVs to drive photo slideshows.

Over time, the average interaction distance between the users and their phones will increase significantly from the few centimetres we see today. Interaction designers can no longer take it for granted that the user will be holding the device in the their hand, with their face close to the screen.

This has big implications for the design of software, the choice of input method, the use of haptics and the role of accessories to extend the experience.

As an example, I have my Nokia N95 mounted on the dashboard of the car. It can provide GPS-enabled mapping, speakerphone and even play my music tracks through the car audio system. However, many of these features are simply too difficult to use unless I’m actually holding the device in my hand.

The keys are too small to press accurately while driving, so searching for an address in the mapping application is impossible unless you are parked. Similarly, I am unable to find the song I want in my music library or build a new playlist. The font size on-screen is also difficult to read at that distance. At night, when the dashboard of the car dims to make it easier to see the road, the handset continues to blaze at full brightness.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the N95 in particular, but rather an illustration of how the new capabilities of mobile phones are enabling out-of-hand applications while the user interaction model is still centred on in-hand scenarios.

There are all sorts of technologies emerging which could improve this experience. Voice recognition is getting better all the time (e.g. Nuance’s ’speak-to-search’ application). Nokia is implementing touchscreen support in Series 60, allowing for more flexible, adaptive UI design. Start-ups like Zeemote have even developed Bluetooth remote controls, allowing you to interact with your mobile phone at a distance (its initial focus is on handheld gaming).

Microvision, with a long-history in new display technologies, is one of several companies which has created a ‘pico’ projector using laser technology to beam videos and photos on to remote surfaces. Along with others, Microvision has also developed wearable glasses which display the screen as a tiny image in front of the eye which, because of its proximity, appears equivalent to a large home cinema screen.

For music, more and more handset manufacturers and third parties are offering speaker systems which turn mobile phones into compelling audio systems. One of the most attractive I’ve seen is the Bowers and Wilkins iPhone speaker dock designed by Native (Thomas Kleist, Director of UI Design at Native, is one of our speakers at the 2008 MEX Conference on 27th - 28th May in London). It transforms the iPhone from a personal media player into a room-filling audio experience that puts the mobile phone at the heart of the environment.

The industry faces a real and complex challenge over the next few years. On the one hand, device manufacturers must grapple with the immediate competitive implications of the iPhone and the growth in touchscreen devices. On the other, companies throughout the industry are seeking to expand the role of the phone into every area of our daily lives, including many scenarios where the handset will actually no longer be held in our hands.

We’ll be tackling these issues from several angles at MEX, the 4th annual PMN Mobile User Experience conference, in London on 27th - 28th May 2008. ‘Handsets are no longer just for the hand‘ is one of the 10 key statements on our MEX Manifesto and will be addressed by Steve Chambers, President of Mobile and Consumer Services at Nuance. He will give a presentation to provoke and inspire a series of breakout discussions, where 100 leading thinkers from across the mobile business will work together to explore a number of questions relating to this topic.

Thomas Kleist, Director of UI Design at Native, will speak on ‘Content itself is the new interface‘. Also addressing this topic will be Ocean Observations, before we open the session to a conference-wide debate.

Join the debate on our blog before the MEX conference opens

Can we further refine the standard twelve key monobloc design to give us greater flexibility to support these functions? How much flexibility do we have in software platforms to support these different usage methods? At what stage in the design process do we focus on particular user requirements and build them in to the hardware specification? Post your comments using the link below…

http://www.mobileuserexperience.com/ 

The Mobile Jam Session event - focused on developers - I’m organizing with Caroline Lewko of the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) during the Mobile World Congress, is taking its’ final shape. Hosted by MyStrands in their new MyStrands offices, the event takes place on Tuesday, February 12, 2008. It is a day to inspire new ideas and innovate solutions to existing challenges.

The event is free of charge for all participants, coffee breaks, lunch and networking cocktail included. Check the attendants list, we’re quite surprised and happy with the enthusiastic reactions and feedback we got so far!

Attendants include developers from companies like Admob, Accenture, Access, Bango, Vodafone Betavine, Bebo, Kyte.tv, Dell Mobile, Facebook , Future Platforms, GetJar, Google Inc., Idean, Intrinsyc, Kimia, LemonQuest, mBricks, Mippin, Mobile Complete, Mobile Distillery, MyStrands, Nokia, OpenID, Peperoni, PixSense Inc, Qualcomm, Reuters, scanR , Seesmic, Six Apart, Shozu , Skyhook Wireless, Sun Microsystems, Telecom Italia, Telefonica I+D, Truphone, Trutap, UIQ Technology, Vertu, Vodafone, W3C, Wavefront, WURFL and Yahoo! to name the most prominent. It’s a great combination of big and small companies; carriers/operators, device manufacturers, content aggregators, platform and developer programs reps and some great start-up companies with a lot of experience in mobile and web convergence.

You can still sign up here if you’d like to attend the morning and/or afternoon sessions or want to join us for our closing networking cocktail.

Check out the Speakers and Topics designed on feedback we received by participants:

• OPENING PANEL
• IMPROV SESSIONS
• CLOSING ENCORE PANEL

Check out the Topics and Speakers:

1. Open ID
2. Mobile Web Development Frameworks – Widgets/Ajax etc
3. Mobile OS / Platforms
4. Usability / UI / Localization / Mobile Interfaces
5. Mobile media / Web Convergence
6. Open Source in Handsets

10:30am – 12:00 noon
Pre-Session for Developers Only

Come early to grab some talk time, croissant and coffee with your peers about what you are developing and your important issues. These will then be brought forward for the rest of the day.

12:00 Noon – 1:00pm
Registration, Lunch, Networking

OPENING PANEL – 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
We have a complete line-up of players to open up our Mobile Jam session. A great combination of big and small companies; a carrier, a device manufacturer, an aggregator, a platform, reps from developer programs and two great small companies with BIG experience. What a great way to get started – don’t miss this one!

The Players:

• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist at Vodafone Group
• Carl Uminski, CTO, Trutap and formerly of Yahoo!
• Souheil Gallouzi, CTO, Intrinsyc and formerly of Qualcomm
• Terrence Barr, Technical Evangelist, SUN Microsystems
• Tom Libretto, VP of Forum Nokia
• Ray Anderson, CEO, Bango

IMPROV SESSIONS 2:30pm – 4:30 pm

The Six (6) Improv discussions are designed for more one-on-one discussions and a deeper dive on topics. Also a better way for you to meet the speakers and your fellow participants.

Note: As this is about improv and flexilbity, so the speaker list still has room for some last minute additions!

1. OpenID
Discussion Leaders:

TBC

2. Mobile Web Development Frameworks – Widgets/Ajax
Discussion Leaders:

• Representative from Forum Nokia
• Dominique Hazael-Massieux, W3C

3. Mobile OS / Platforms
Discussion Leaders:

• Vincent Berge, Co-Founder & General Manager, Mobile Distillery
• Rich Killmer, Sr. Sales Director, Mobile Complete
• Oscar Gutierrez, Vodafone Betavine
• Terrence Barr, Technical Evangelist, SUN Microsystems

About this topic:
From Mobile Java to other platforms like Symbian, BREW, FlashLite, Android, PalmOS, Access Garnet and Windows Mobile.

4. Usability / UI / Localization / Mobile Interfaces
Discussion Leaders:

• Mikko-Pekka Hanski, Idean
• David Mery, Editor - Developer Program, UIQ Technology
• Morten Hjerde, Senior Interaction Designer at mBricks

5. Mobile Media / Web Convergence
Discussion Leaders:

• Carmen Sales - Product Development Coordinator, Kimia
• Jakub Danilewicz - Alembik project architect

About this topic:
Return of Prometheus: bringing the web to mobile devices. Giving the power of free media transcoding and web rendering to the mortals.

6. Open Source in Handsets
Discussion Leaders:

• Bill Lee, Developer Relations, ACCESS
• Luca Pasani, Admob and founder of WURFL

CLOSING PANEL: MOBILE JAM SESSION - ENCORE 4:45pm – 5:30pm
We’ll start off with some closing remarks from our panelists and then add in other players from the audience to ‘jam’ with them.

The Players:

• Fabio Ricciato, Mobile Handset Evolution, Telecom Italia, Mobile (TIM) Access and Terminals in Technology Division
• Bill Lee, Developer Relations, ACCESS
• Karel De Beule - co-Founder, Kimia
• Open seats to rotate audience members.

Jam - gather and play without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements.

5:30pm – 7:30pm
Reception
Let’s end the day raising a toast – Salut! Other player’s will join us.

Rudy and Caroline will choose their favorite Jazz picks for a perfect cocktail mood.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at Torre Mapfre in Barcelona.

Infused with the spirit of the early days of Jazz, the Mobile Jam Session is a day to inspire new ideas and innovate solutions to existing challenges. The purpose is focused, but the agenda is improvised along the way.

Caroline Lewko of the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) and myself are ‘jazzed’ about working together to bring you the first of - hopefully - many Mobile Jam Sessions. The idea emerged to open up the mobile ecosystem and connect experienced and talented developers, with industry experts and decision makers.

Most importantly we want this event to be driven by developers – what they want to hear, who they want to talk to, what they want to say… Any mobile developer ca