Mobile Insights Newsletter — August ’06
The Mobile User Experience
A New Frontier in Design Considerations
It is no secret in the mobile industry that understanding the mobile user is a much more complicated task than understanding the traditional desktop user. A handheld device inherently presents unique challenges for the mobile user experience designer. The moving user is significantly more reliant on their mobile phone and uses their device in numerous contexts and for a variety of reasons, including communication, information, entertainment and personalization.
As mobile phones become nearly ubiquitous they are being transformed from simple voice-communication tools to the most personalized and important electronic extension of our lives. Increasing mobile phone capabilities are facilitating the delivery of advanced features and multimedia services. Designing simple and effective user interfaces plays an integral role in facilitating the adoption of these features and services.
Unique limitations presented by the mobile environment include those related to technology and users.
Technology constraints include:
- Memory capacity
- Display size
- Battery power
- Input method (smaller and/or fewer buttons)
- Network reliability
- Bandwidth
- Device processing power
User constraints include:
- Technology experience (beginner or tech-savvy users?)
- Environment noise/distraction
- Limited attention span/time
- Changing locations and contexts
- Unique user habits and personal preferences
In addition, a single user may desire different content presentation depending upon their location, the situation, their interest level and cost considerations. These factors influence the level of content detail, presentation quality and presentation style. With all of these additional design considerations, creating a user experience that is intuitive and easy to use can be challenging. Read the next article by Motricity User Experience Design expert, Richard Cecil, to learn more about researching and understanding the context in which your audience is using their mobile devices and hot to utilize research for your off-deck storefront.
The Value of Customer Research for Your Off-Deck Storefront
Increase Revenue, Build Loyalty and Reinforce Your Brand
By Richard Cecil, Motricity User Experience Design Lead
With the advent of mobile devices has begun the era of mobile lifestyles – end users are now using their mobile devices for communication, information and entertainment no matter where they are. How can your company interact and engage your customers when there are hundreds of distractions competing for their attention?
This problem is particularly challenging for non-carrier clients who want to open up a mobile storefront. Contrary to carriers, off-deck storefronts don't have the advantage of being accessible within a click or two on the handset. So, not only do you have to provide a superb user experience once your user gets to your storefront in order to retain their interest, but you must also get them to your storefront in the first place. In addition, you want to ensure that you will be able to successfully extend your brand without damaging your positive brand image.
The key, then, is to understand the context in which your customers will use your mobile service. By understanding this context and designing your mobile service to seamlessly integrate with the environment, you will create a relationship with your customer base that will give you a strong competitive advantage in the marketplace.
How do you understand your customer’s context? The answer is by doing customer research. In particular, you should observe individuals from your target market interacting with your product. This might sound redundant if you already buy (syndicated) market research, but in-situ customer research will make you gain insights that no other types of research will provide. To demonstrate the power of this type of customer-centered research: In 2005, Staples launched a Web site redesign based on findings from customer research and realized a 450% increase in sales. If Staples can do that on the Web, imagine what you can do in a market that’s as new and challenging as mobile. In particular, through customer research, we can learn valuable insights on:
- Environment — In which environment are your users likely to purchase your content? In a restaurant out with friends? Sitting on the couch watching TV? The answer to this question is important. It affects how you create, market, and differentiate your storefront as well as the types of content you offer. Someone who downloads content in a noisy room will have a different expectation and experience than someone who downloads content at their quiet local Starbucks.
- Time — How much time does the customer have to spend trying to find the content that they are looking for? If they're standing in line at the movie theater, they may only have a few minutes. The more distracting the environment, the less time you have with your customer to close the sale.
- Attitude — What is your customer’s attitude toward your brand and the ability to extend that brand to the mobile sphere? Further, what is your customer’s general attitude toward mobile phones and m-commerce? Here’s an obvious example: if the target demographic is in their 50s, they are probably not going to be comfortable buying mobile content – unless you offer extremely valuable, differentiated content over this unique distribution channel, they will likely opt for the Internet or a brick-and-mortar store. On the flip side, even if your existing customer-base uses mobile content on a regular basis, will they be interested in buying mobile content from you? How will they find out about you and what is your angle?
- Culture — What are the social influences the person's family and friends bring to bear? How do those influences affect their decisions – from the types of products they purchase to how much money they're willing to spend, as well as what qualities they value?
Customer research can be an extremely valuable data point that no other research method can provide. Further, for a relatively low upfront investment, you can qualitatively evaluate whether it makes financial sense to deploy a mobile storefront; if it does make sense, you will have gained insight into your customer's behavior that, when translated into design decisions, will lead to greater usage and higher conversion rates once your storefront is launched.
Getting to Know GoldPocket Wireless
Campaign Manager Delivers Simplified Process and Robust Systems
Located in Los Angeles, California, GoldPocket Wireless is both geographically and experientially positioned in the best place to understand the television industry, through excellent relationships, development, production and distribution. GoldPocket’s in-depth knowledge of building interactive television programming and their mature and robust campaign manager platform have allowed them to attract a customer roster that includes CBS, NBC, CNN, Showtime, A&E, History Channel, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, Fandango, Tribune, Condé Nast, Fox, Clear Channel Radio and more.
“Our platform simplifies the campaign management process – to the delight of our customers, who no longer have to start a tedious string of calls or e-mails to implement a minor change,” said Steve Leonard, former CEO of GoldPocket Wireless and new Off-Deck General Manager for Motricity, “Instead, they can log in to our tool, make the change and hit the submit button.” Another GoldPocket Wireless differentiator is the strength of the platform and systems, which have been built and tested to handle the high capacity and large inbound traffic spikes that are inherent in interactive television campaigns. GoldPocket Wireless's interactive systems are widely accepted as the industry standard.
View GoldPocket Wireless Case Studies:
- Get Rich with NBC’s The Apprentice Mobile Vote
- You Decide the Outcome of CBS’s Big Brother 6
- TV Guide’s Live at the Oscars with Joan and Melissa Rivers
Want more Motricity mobile insights? Sign up for our Newsletter HERE!