Small Surfaces

The MEX (Mobile User Experience) conference is coming to London very soon. Late last year they published a ten point manifesto which will form the focus of presentations and discussions for the conference, which is is a great idea.

“1. Understanding users and delivering exceptional customer service is just as important a part of the mobile experience as the latest technology and the size of the marketing budget. It can be the key differentiator for a business. We think too much time and money is invested in getting products to market quickly rather than getting products to market effectively.

“2. Tearing down the walled garden will enhance the mobile content experience and release value for the industry. The objective should be a free market for content and applications, based on open standards and accessible to all. We think the current fragmentation of formats and channels to market is holding back growth.

“3. Mobile advertising can enhance the user experience if it is relevant and contextual. It can become a tool which benefits rather than distracts the customer. We think it will fail if it interrupts the flow of action on mobile devices and tries to replicate traditional advertising models.

“4. Handsets, applications and services should be more aware of the user’s physical environment and adapt to provide the most appropriate interface for sound and visual conditions. We think multi-modal interfaces should be supported on many more mobile devices and can dramatically improve the user experience.

“5. User experience performance must be measured if it is to be improved. It must be constantly tracked through quantitative and qualitative methods. We think organisations throughout the value chain are failing to recognise the importance of understanding customers because quantifying the return on investment is too difficult.

“6. The world is gaining embedded intelligence. The mobile industry faces a fundamental user experience challenge to make handsets as effective as communicating with the environment as they are with other humans. We think the connection of millions of machines to wireless communication networks represents the most significant generational change since the introduction of packet data.

“7. The objective is to provide the best mobile experience for each individual. Developing chipsets, software platforms, handsets and services which make it cost-effective to provide this level of personalisation will delight users and drive profits for the industry. We think the industry can grow its margins if it finds a way to build personalisation into every level of the value chain.

“8. Mobile devices are the natural choice for interacting with communities. Sharing experiences through your mobile device should be as simple as making a voice call. We think the success of user-generated content, social networking and community interaction through mobile devices will depend on enhancing rather than replicating the desktop experience.

“9. The mobile experience is limited to voice and text by in-efficient search and discovery mechanisms. We think any service should be accessible from the standby screen and it should be as simple as dialling a number.

“10. Service pricing is often misaligned with the realities of customer spending patterns. It is one of the defining factors of the mobile user experience and can play a role in determining everything from device choice to ongoing usage of mobile applications. We think the industry needs to become smarter and more dynamic in its approach to pricing and wake-up to the reality of fighting for wallet share.”

Link: MEX – the strategy forum for mobile user experience (mobileuserexperience.com)