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Developing usable mobile phones
The common goal of usability professionals working on Nokia mobile phones is to develop devices from the end-user needs’ perspective, and not only based on technical possibilities. Our task is to ensure that the target user group of each model can operate the device fluently and with joy. Nokia investigates all phases in the device lifecycle: taking the device into use, learning to use it, and daily use. The variety of different cultures and contexts of use make usability work especially interesting and challenging. Compared to PC application development or Web site authoring, mobile phone manufacturing requires a much wider range of usability investigation. Some examples of the topics, which usability experts at Nokia investigate, are presented in the table below.
Table: Examples of research topics in mobile device usability The benefits of personal devices When it comes to device functionality, a small device does have its limitations, but mobility brings also huge benefits. Compared to stationary devices, a mobile device that users carry with them almost all the time opens up new opportunities for applications and features. Personal area networks and location and context sensitivity are interesting and important topics also from the usability and human-factor point of view. To exploit these opportunities in a user-friendly way, we need to understand the nature of different mobile contexts and human behaviour outside laboratories. Between usability and marketing, there is also emotions research, which aims at understanding what users feel and why when interacting with the device, and what brings about a joyful user experience. People have an emotional relationship with their personal mobile phones: the phone they carry with them expresses their personality in a similar way as their car does. An important success factor Usability is certainly one of the success factors of mobile devices, but it is not the only one. Usability, industrial design, functionality, and performance all go hand in hand, together comprising the user experience. The usability profession has evolved to cover parts of each of these aspects. Consequently, the old usability teams are now called user experience teams, and the team members have a wider range of backgrounds. For example, usability experts carry out user trials to assess whether the perceived performance of an application is adequate, because it is not always clear what the acceptable performance level is. User experience specialists are also increasingly involved in defining the phone functionality and features, because they can anticipate the user needs with greater sensitivity than technologists. Industrial design and functionality are the factors that affect a purchasing decision the most, in addition to the price. A customer often discovers only after having purchased a phone that the device is totally unusable or slow. Usability experts want to encourage buyers before the purchase to try out some basic tasks with the phone, like writing a text message or taking a picture. This prevents many post-purchase disappointments. User interface styles The earlier usability activities are started in the product development process the better. By understanding the users’ needs, desires, and current usage patterns, new concepts and inventions may emerge to be further developed, for example in Nokia Ventures Organization. There is a wide variety of usability verification methods available for the different phases of the product development cycle.
Nokia has dozens of phone models coming out each year, so it would be impossible to perform a complete usability test on each of them. The solution is consistency, which is gained by using well-defined user interface (UI) styles. A user interface style defines the screen resolution, set of keys, and application look and feel. The functionality and industrial design of each phone varies, of course, but the underlying UI rules are the same. Series 60 UI style by Nokia has been licensed also to several other phone manufacturers. Everyone benefits from the consistency: End-users do not have to learn a new user interface logic each time they purchase a new phone. Telecom operators need to have only one sort of settings for a series of phones. It is easier for Nokia to produce usable devices by ensuring feature usability once and apply it across many models. The consistent UI style also helps third party developers to build applications for various phone models easily. No wonder there is a bunch of Series 60 applications available that end-users can purchase as add-ons for their devices.
The look and functionality if Series 60 phones vary, but they all have a consistent display resolution, set of keys, and UI logic. Reference Lindholm, C., Keinonen, T., Kiljander, H.; Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone (2003) (http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,49410,0.html?id=23) Please send us your comments on this article. |
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