“Although dedicated mobile apps are not yet good enough to win in their own right, it was striking how many of this year’s winners have a mobile component. Mobile is definitively the trend to watch for next year, and any application owner should think hard about whether and how to add mobile features in 2009.”

Link: Year’s 10 Best Application UIs (useit.com)

Related:

• Why talking on a mobile is annoying
• The simple phone meme continues
• The technologies that drive mobile devices

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“I think Web applications are going to destroy most native app development for mobiles. Not because the Web is a better technology for mobile, but because it has a better business model. Think about it: If you’re creating a website, you don’t have to get permission from a carrier. You don’t have to get anything certified by anyone. You don’t have to beg for placement on the deck, and you don’t have to pay half your revenue to a reseller. In fact, the operator, handset vendor, and OS vendor probably won’t even be aware that you exist. It’ll just be you and the user, communicating directly.”

Update: see some interesting responses by Carlo Longino, Mike Rowehl, and Dean Bubley.

Link: Mobile applications, RIP (mobileopportunity.blogspot.com)

Related:

• Context aware applications
• The mobile and the sedentary life
• Verizon opens network to experimenters

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“A common complaint about the mobile web is that it’s unattractive, or even useless, because of the small screen size, but I’ve never much bought into that. Is this focus on zooming a reflection of the idea that making the mobile web and mobile content better is just a question of fitting more on the screen? When we talk about “more” in this context, the focus should be on richness, not sheer quantity, and I remain convinced that this is a information architecture issue as much as a technical issue. The right idea isn’t to simply throw more information at mobile users, but to deliver better information to them.”

Link: Mobile UI Trends: Is More Better? (mobhappy.com)

Related:

• Book: Mobile Interaction Design
• Motion sensing in mobile devices
• Of mobiles and desktops

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“Now this is a good example of what I’d like to see for mobile: mini-apps, like TadaList or MeetWithApproval, that do a single thing nice and cleanly.

“The big gap I see now is an app to help you synchronise with >2 people; getting consensus from 3 or more folks using SMS “by hand” is a nightmare, wouldn’t it be nicer if you could just get everyone sent a single message which lets them comment, argue, and decide…”

Link: Mini-mobile apps (tomhume.org)

Related:

• Mobile design guidelines
• Mobile gameplay
• Design for mobile communitites

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“Design for multiple and dynamic contexts
Allow for single- or no-handed operation
Design for small devices
Design for limited and split attention
Design for speed and recovery
Design for ‘top-down’ interaction
Allow for personalization
Design for enjoyment”

Link: Guidelines for handheld mobile interface design (pdf)

Related:

• Mobile Devices as Pervasive User Interfaces and Interaction Devices (PERMID 2005)
• 12 Myths of mobile user interface design
• The Seven Rules of Mobile Data User Experience

Share on Facebook | Save to del.icio.us | Small Surfaces is published by Gabriel White.

(I don’t have access to the ACM library at the moment, but this definitely looks interesting).

Link: How do users think about ubiquitous computing?

Related:

• Ethical guidelines for ubiquitous computing
• 12 Myths of mobile user interface design

Share on Facebook | Save to del.icio.us | Small Surfaces is published by Gabriel White.