Here’s the presentation I gave in Sydney at Web Directions a week or so ago (great conference!).
Link: Context, Sensing and Mobiles (slideshare.net)
Posts Tagged: conference
30
Jun 08
The Evolution of the Mobile Ecosystem
Francesco Cara from Nokia talks about the mobile ecosystem.
Link: Evolution of the mobile communication ecosystem (liftconference.com)
29
Apr 08
Fashion over function?
Marek Pawlowski write about one of the topics at this year’s MEX conference: fashion.
“It may be limited to the high-end of the mobile market, but Vertu is a great example of two very important techniques which are applicable at all levels: total experience planning and customer involvement. The Vertu experience extends across the hardware, software, services and retail environment. At the same time, it involves its customers directly in the product development process, producing customised handsets and allowing customers to actually see how their device is built.
“These principles may manifest themselves in different ways at different levels of the pricing scale, but the fundamentals remain the same. A successful manufacturer must be able to see its products in the wider context of a user’s lifestyle and must structure its development process to respond quickly to the needs of individual customers.
“Perhaps this is indicative of manufacturers following ‘fashion’ or becoming ’style-orientated’, or perhaps it is just good user experience practice?”
Link: Is fashion a stronger motivator than functionality? (mobileuserexperience.com)
28
Apr 08
User Experience Discussion at Over the Air
Some interesting discussion about mobile UX at Over the Air, via Brian Fling’s resurrected Mobile Design blog.
28
Apr 08
Mobile Web 2.0 Summit
Conference about the mobile web being held in London this June.
Link: Mobile Web 2.0 Summit (mobilewebsummit.com, via)
24
Apr 08
MEX design competition
MEX is hosting a design competition of sorts – encouraging people to showcase design ideas (or new products) for mobile. Here are some of them.
The Blind Phone concept seems to a bit of a dexterity obstacle course – I’m not sure how you could dial with a pinky finger and keep a decent grip on the device:
“The Blind Phone is aimed at filling a niche requirement for blind and partially sighted people. A phone designed from the ground up around the needs of a restricted sight person.”
Link: BSR Blind Phone
Delta deals with the particularly North American obsession with having full keyboards on devices. It has F keys, and I’ll leave it at that:
“At the heart of a Delta II equipped mobile phone is a patented, modified QWERTY button layout that is simple, elegant, and brutally effective. The buttons are large enough to easily read and far enough apart to comfortably press, even for people with large hands. The ingenious button layout takes advantage of the user’s motor memory and PC (QWERTY) keyboard typing experience. The result is new users typing a speedy 20 to 30+ WPM in less than 5 minutes; on single-hand operation mobile phones no larger than a business card – previously this was unheard of.”
Link: Finest Mobile Phone Keypad in the World
Motionized looks like fun:
“By using the movement of the handset to enable users to browse menus, pan and zoom within images, navigate web pages or play games, the Motionized handset introduces a breakthrough in user experience.”
Link: Motionized™ – using the phone’s camera to enable a new UI
Slide it (like SharkText, which became ShapeWriter) requires users to slide a stylus around to type faster:
“SlideIt, is an intuitive method to input text on touch screen enabled devices. Instead of tapping each letter, with SlideIt users simply point to first letter of a word and slide the stylus to the subsequent letters. Spacing is achieved by just lifting the stylus. Speeds of more than 50 words per minute are easily achievable. Consumers love the feel of writing quickly and accurately.”
20
Apr 08
MobileHCI conference in September
“The MobileHCI series provides a forum for academics and practitioners to discuss the challenges and potential solutions for effective interaction with mobile systems and services. It covers the design, evaluation and application of techniques and approaches for all mobile and wearable computing devices and services.”
Link: MobileHCI 2008 (telin.nl)
15
Apr 08
Bruce Sterling talks about ubicomp
Video from the Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign conference in Germany.
Bruce Sterling from Innovationsforum on Vimeo.
Link: Bruce Sterling (vimeo.com, via)
24
Mar 08
Mobiles and the developing world interview
Marek Pawlowski spoke with JD Moore about mobiles and developing countries for the upcoming MEX conference. Watch the 20 minute video below.
Link: In-depth video interview on emerging markets (mobileuserexperience.com)
12
Feb 08
Design for the other 99%
The fantastic IxDA Interaction 08 conference is barely a day over and videos of the presentations are already bubbling up online. Morten Hjerde spoke about design for everything that’s not an iPhone. And for those who are interested, my talk about how we can bring ethical evaluation into everyday design practice is also available.
“Abstract: The iPhone is a beautiful and cool device. Admit it: it has gotten you started thinking about designing for mobile phones. But you are not aiming for only 1% of the market, are you? What about the other 99% of the phones out there? The Samsungs, the Palms, the Motorolas. Even if their native software is not dead-on cool, that does not mean that your software can’t be. This session will focus on the important differences between designing for a direct manipulation device like a PC and an indirect manipulation device like most mobile phones, the challenges you face and the opportunities you have when you get down to instantiating an actual mobile phone user interface across different devices.”
Link: Design for the other 99% (brightcove.tv)
13
Dec 07
MEX 2008 Manifesto
Marek Pawlowski of the MEX conference has published a ten point manifesto for next years’ meeting:
1. Content itself will be the interface of the future
2. Handsets are no longer just for the hand
3. Fragmentation is the enemy of innovation
4. Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality
5. The developing world is the new frontier for mobile user experience
6. Search requires a radically different approach in the mobile environment
7. Intelligent contact lists are the future centres of the user interface
8. Mobile payments herald the next generational shift
9. Users as individuals: uniquely complex and contradictory
10. The potential of smart voice
Link: The Mobile User Experience Manifesto for 2008 (mobileuserexperience.com)
