Chapter 13: Six Mobile Messages

Overview

Turkka Keinonen and Christian Lindholm

We have written here about mobile user interface development at Nokia. We describe the role and elements of the fundamental UI building block, the user interface style, in mobile handsets. We illustrate what happened when we set out to design a phone for second-generation digital mobile communication technologies in the 1990s. We discuss different methodologies and approaches to studying end users, carrying out usability research, and conducting usability engineering activities within the constraints of daily product development work. We also ponder the landscape ahead of us, as it seems from our point of view in the haze. We have based what we say on our own experiences. There have been no comparisons to our competitors. Still, we believe that many of our experiences and approaches are not company-specific, but characterize the whole field of mobile communications and perhaps even user interface design for any portable interactive device. Where our thoughts differ, they can be used as a benchmark.

One thing we have not done is to present a single principle behind what we do. Instead, we’ve tried to illustrate that user interface design is not like the huge boulder in the lobby of the corporate headquarters, but more like the gravel it would become if it were crushed and spread throughout the research and product creation divisions.

Some overall principles, though, are recognizable. They are related to the very basic constraints that we work with: mobility, consumer markets, and flexible and rapidly developing technologies. In this chapter we will consolidate these six mobile messages for your convenience.



Mobile Usability(c) How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone
Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone
ISBN: 0071385142
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 142

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