Presentation on the future of mobile landscapes, discussing the impact of increasing technology fragmentation, interaction design concerns, and new initiatives that may help to achieve greater convergence.
Thanks to Sheen Yap and Joe Purves for slides and inspiration.
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So before we get started, yes, I work for the company that DOESN’T have the iPhone. Yes I do know when we are getting it, and no I can’t tell
you.
5. 1 September 2008
Mobile Design
Challenges:
or the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle
Dr. Rod Farmer, Senior Manager, User Experience and Creative Services, 3 Mobile Australia
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Good afternoon, my name is Rod Farmer and I work for the only carrier in Australia without the i‐Phone. Before anyone asks, no I don’t know
when we are getting it.
I’d like to talk to you today about some of my evolving thoughts on building and managing UX teams. I’d love to hear your own thoughts, as this
is an area of UX that doesn’t get all that much discussion.
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Senior Manager, UX+CS. I joined 3 12 months ago having worked at Telstra in mobile user experience. Prior to that, well, I hung out here a
lot :-)
Currently I’m responsible for tactical and strategic direction for mobile, devices, applications, online and self-service. I’ve also recently
started leading company wide process reforms and chair UX panel between UK and AU.
For those of you who already know me, you’ll attest to the fact that I am passionate about User Experience. More precisely, I am
absolutely driven by our ability, as a discipline, to significantly improve people’s lives. I work for Telco’s because I see mobile technology
as being the most powerful and accessible means of achieving this outcome.
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I love working for 3 because we see ourselves and our customers as unique – and it’s this
unique approach that has helped us get to where we are today. We are the fastest growing
Telco, recognised as industry innovators, and constantly challenge what it means to provide
great mobile experiences. We’re not afraid to be different, in fact, we embrace it.
8. quot;Mobile is the fastest and cheapest way to
reach the largest number of people. There
are billions of people on this planet who
still don't have access to the Internet. And
we think mobile presents the biggest
opportunity to get them on the Internet.“
Chris Sacca, former head of special initiatives at Google
late 2007
Page
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•So mobile really does represent an amazing opportunity to create meaningful experiences in people’s lives.
•And this is the challenge I think most businesses are starting to realise.....
9. Mobile
Subscriptions
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3.3
billion in 2008
9
10. People the
accessing
Web
UK » 5.7 million from Mobile
» 30 million from PC
US » 30 million from a Mobile
» 176 million from a PC
Sunday, 30 November 2008
1/5
Mobile Web Audience
10
11. Notre Dame de
Paris….
…not just about the architecture
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13. ……Not just about navigating from A to B
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14. ….not just about successfully completing goals
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15. Experience is beyond good service.
Good experiences are:
remembered, savored, recounted, publicised, souvenir-ed, replicated
It’s more about the sensations that people get from using service.
Sometimes that is what people come for and pay for
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Staging a good experience is not just about delivering good service to satisfied customers
Good experiences are remembered, savored,
recounted, publicised, souvenir‐ed, repeated
It’s about the sensations that people get from
using service
Sometimes it’s the sensations that people come for and pay for
18. 18
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Receiving lots of conflicting directions, with no clear signposts for a common path forward
19. Page
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Not just a problem for us - all telcos face this uphill
battle.
20. Indispensible
desirability
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But these problems are particularly important to 3 as our aspiration is to be Indispensable Desirable.
To challenge and change forever the way people use their mobiles and the internet, by creating an experience
that is simply better than the one they know today.
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And in order to achieve this, we’ve realised pretty quickly that the only way forward is to change the game
we’re playing..
22. Who’s driving? 22
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One of the problems we face today producing compelling designs in the degree of mobile technology fragmentation
It’s hard to know where we’re going and the best way to get there. It’s very easy to get lost in the options
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HIstorically, part of the problem has been trying to create a captive audience.
How do you get a captive audience? The problem has is perhaps innovation itself
Innovation ‐‐> Differentiation ‐‐> Protectionism ‐‐> Fragmentation
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And mobile technology has evolved rapidly, from simple 2G services with limited interaction in 2001
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To fully featured communication and media devices with novel interaction interfaces in 2007
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Over the years, we’ve hung onto these legacy devices. 1500 different devices hit the portal per month (devices, firm ware, different plans, etc.)
Each device is different, mostly incompatible, and has different levels of functionality and standards support.
Whilst new devices act as a revenue generator (unless it’s a loss leader), device flexing, provisioning, testing, not to mention specific designs, is
very costly.
27. Background &
Challenges
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30. “I know what
ugoogly is”
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To give you a better understanding what typically goes on, here’s a typical product on 3 Mobile.
How do we get to the end-user view?
Provisioning: Global test, local flex design, local testing, provisioning partners, updating our servers and gateways, visual design
testing, content testing, OTA, and much more.
Rendering: Hutch, Provisioned, Who?, Device type, Roaming, Subscription checks, Billing systems check, etc...
RSS problems!!!
Device capability...
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Different devices require different designs, either scaled or different style entirely.
At Hutch we do Pixel perfect design... At quite a bit of complexity, but there’s a payoff
Discuss traffic to Hutch, Portal access, and 3G content penetration.
How do we currently make sense of all these sizes? DA Classes: DA2, DA6, DA1,2, DA3,4, DA7 (soon - DA0 with liquid layout)
But there’s a better way --> pattern-based classes
32. DA6
today
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Device capabilities
Roaming - 2G limitations what do you do?
Pricing
Device rendering: page weights, CSS reliability, media formats
Pointer versus Scroller (link styles)
Linear versus parallel rendering
Latency - DNS, GTTN gateways, subscription checks, etc.
Expectations around responsiveness.
33. DA6
to-dohh!
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Pixel perfect style works brilliantly for us, 82% 3G content usage penetration. Telstra is 16%
But this means testing must be done on EVERY design, EVERY handset, EVERY different customer profile.
35. The
Jesus
Phone ?
35
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Even this baby has problems
Viewports
haptic interaction
.mobi support
media format support
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And then there’s the actual difficulties in dealing with different handset technologies.
Talk about
37. Next wave
thinking
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38. 38
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Android vs iPhone
open‐market environment, democratised innovation
closed‐market environment, open innovation
Tradeoff is variance in quality and desirabiliy.
39. m-SVG AJAX
ready.mobi BREW
Flash Lite wurfl jQuery
OMA DeviceAtlas
JavaFX MWI transcoding ECMAScript
mojax
AIR CSS 3 OMTP
Wireless CSS XHTML-MP
Linux ARM widgets
WebKit
39
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40. It’s a
Walk-off!
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So we’re not prepared to sit back, and have taken some measures to address the situation.... And, we’ve continued to innovate.
41. Liquid
What’s a
Layout ?
» expandable content
» pages that flow
» wrapping content
» liquid CSS/Code
» scalable design
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Moving beyond device classes, and moving to pattern-based interaction design.
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And we can even switch out UI component elements to better make interaction style (so we support haptic UI design).
Can be done on the fly...