Chapter 8: Series 60 Voice Mailbox in Rome--A Case Study of a Paper Prototyping Tour

Overview

Pekka Ketola

Finland is a small language area, and the Finns’ attitudes towards technology are exceptionally favorable. Since the early 1980s, patterns of social communication have been characterized by rapid urbanization. These are advantages for a communication technology company originating in Finland and still maintaining a remarkable percentage of its research and development resources in Finland. One’s own backyard can be used as a test laboratory for future solutions.

Often, however, we find ourselves designing solutions for the real-world users of today instead of technophiles of the future. In these cases we have to speak with consumers where the markets are, where the customers live. That discussion has to be fluent and productive to satisfy the efficiency requirements of product development. It has to begin early in the development process for the users’ words to exert their influence when it is most needed—when the solutions are not yet fixed. Consequently, we assess our user interface (UI) design drafts internationally with very preliminary material. We of course cannot afford to test them in each and every country, but there are countries and cities that we regard as good locations to represent surrounding market areas. Rome is one of those places. Mobile communication culture in Italy is mature, and mobile phone penetration is high. Rome reflects the southern European and Mediterranean communication culture quite well. Besides, why pass up a chance to go to Rome?

This chapter tells the story of one out of numerous tests performed on the Series 60 UI. We were in the early phases of creating a new UI style for future smart phones. Smart phones are an emerging product category where communication, namely, voice calls and messaging, is still the main function, but where personal information management is fundamentally improved compared to conventional mobile phones. Smart phones have good calendars, versatile contact management properties, to-do lists, address books, and so on. They are solid platforms for imaging and gaming. This chapter describes usability evaluations carried out with a paper prototyping technique and what we learned about the technique in international settings.

This study shows that although results from a single quick and dirty kind of usability test are relatively incomplete, the tour as a whole can be very instructive. The quality of data captured can be substantially enhanced if investigators also pay attention to cultural issues outside the immediate test sessions, learn about language differences, and repeat the tests on several sites. In addition to its primary purpose of eliminating usability defects from the present design version, usability testing is an opportunity for the different stakeholders in product development to learn about user behavior on a more general level and to gain insight into new UI solutions to be applied in future designs.