Introduction--Mobile Distinctions

Overview

Turkka Keinonen

Developers and designers have been taught that people are not crazy about new technologies but they appreciate real benefits in products. At the same time, we have set up our booth in a marketplace where this understanding is frequently blurred by a haze of enthusiasm cast up by emerging technology.

We, too, contribute to the ascendency of technology. Being in the vanguard of early adopters is a real “must,” we say. Being first to find and use a new solution is a value in itself. These arguments are stated overtly and even proudly. Behavior that can be understood only on the basis of such motives is common, and can often appear in the guise of fulfilling user needs. We all need to be able to control our coffeemakers with our handsets! Why? Because it is possible. Because if you don’t do it now, someone else will do it before you.

The enthusiasm is understandable and probably even unavoidable. Technology raises passions. Is there anything more rewarding than making something work for the first time when you know it is doable, but no one has done it yet? Making it faster than it has ever been? Making it just a little bit cleverer? For a big proportion of R&D activities, new and sophisticated technologies are the goal. There is nothing wrong in that. It is not necessary to demand that the everyday needs of nursery school teachers or ironworkers be considered in the early development phases of low-power radio-frequency transmissions. However, it is vital that user needs meet the technologies at some point in the development cycle, or they will die. The technologies, that is. The customers will survive nicely without the latest gadgets.

Our experience has been that the intersection of user needs and the industry interests increasingly takes place only after product launch. The birth of a mobile communication culture has been so sudden that it’s no wonder that unpredictable phenomena occur. New solutions are utilized in ways that never even occurred to their designers. That is acceptable, of course, but designers would feel a lot better if given a chance to take user behavior into account before the launch. This book is about arranging a summit—the heads of the superpowers, industry and the consumer, meet in a user interface.

It won’t be the first time they’ve met. Why is this case of special interest? We think that industry and the user will find it exceptionally challenging and worthwhile to agree on mobile communication technology. The reasons for this belief are rooted in mobility, communication, technology, and design.