Posted Live from MEX

Speaker: Tracy Ross, Principal Researcher, Mobile Telecoms, ESRI

Tracey talked about taking a step back to determine what users really want to do in a mobile context. Participative design tools, user mapping, diary studies, ‘experimenter’ immersion and pre/during/post task analysis are a mix of techniques that can be used. Tracey described ten studies at ESRI that used these techniques and provided some insights…

Going Out for the Night

• Dipping in and out of apps is frustrating
• Needs differ depending on content (e.g. whether know where they are going?)
• Service must pass the ‘is it worth the bother’ test

What’s Needed of Mobile Commerce?

• Cashless/cardless welcome
• Swapping cash between phones desirable
• Pointing phone towards need desirable (near field communications needed)

Hidden Secrets on Your Mobile

• Boys – social and ego based – mainly photos
• Girls – emotional – photos and text

Link between (casual) Games and Chocolate

• Girls – simple games, little concentration, likened to chocolate
• Boys – Competitive

Supporting Group Communications

• Groups fluid but overlapping
• Value in sending group comms – but under used
• Need to support multiple personas

Moblogging

• Close relationships, infrequent co-presence, low covertness
• Barriers – image quality, usability, cost
• Enablers – Being able to manipulate images, access from mobile, common format

Off The Beaten Track Crowd

• Tension between being contactable and behavioural etiquette
• Not just location but also where going and where been

Journeys

• Need ability to log reminders while travelling
• Need support services (speech, availability of services) to be able to do this on the move

Mobile workers

• Importance of organisational context (e.g. time estimates)
• Up to date centralised information required

Challenging environments

• Procedural interfaces don’t work (dip in, dip out)
• Need ability to capture and track

Notes posted live from MEX – More detailed report, including panel discussion, will be available after the event.