The growth from nil to over 2 billion GSM subscribers has been quite an exciting ride. Approximately 18 users are signing up every second; it took 12 years to reach the first billion whereas the second billion was achieved in under two and half years – the fastest growth seen by any telecoms technology. All eyes out for the third billion now.

We know the landscape of the industry and its subscribers is changing rapidly as the majority of the growth will come from emerging markets such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India China) countries, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. I think the biggest impact is touching the lives of people to connect the unconnected in helping bridge the digital divide.

The experience starts for an end user right from the point of sale, where the first introduction is made to the choice of devices. It is their first contact with the product offering, followed by a comprehension of its capability and functionality along with USPs and ESPs (Unique and Emotional Selling Propositions).

Next is when they hold the device, when the sensoric perceptions come into play. Then it’s the design, the look and feel and touch. Subsequently the overall value proposition is derived as part of the out of box experience, competitive differentiation, cost positioning, mapping of functionality and benefit awareness.

The constituents of the total experience include the access (with and from the device), applications and services, accessories, content, customer service… The industrial design: form factor, material, styling, ergonomics, colour – all of these are strong contributors to the user experience and closely linked to the emotional appeal. Just look at the iPod phenomenon.

The building blocks of usability, such as the iconography, menu tree structure, soft and hard buttons, ought to be influenced by the various factors that make the entire product story. The right combination of hardware and software customisation is always required.

User experience is one of the most effective ways to differentiate in today’s mobile device environment. It is the packaged solution that needs to be considered and not the stand-alone product.

In general we note that the 80/20 rule applies also to mobile functionality usage: more than 80% of the people use less than 20% of the features and capabilities on a mobile device. I had introduced the term ‘SIMPLEXITY’ a few years ago. This refers to the need for providing simplicity in an increasingly complex device and environment. Convenience is the highly sought after attribute within the horizontal theme of simplicity. In fact, the challenge is managing complexity to deliver convenience. Quite often less is more!

The handset plays a pivot role in the value web, as it is the only extension of the network in the hands of the end user. It provides not only the delivery mechanism, but is also the tangible hardware which reveals the personality of the user through the brand image.

It is most important to understand the user expectation and be driven by use cases and user scenarios to design the right product. As an example, when you look at fundamental consumer cameraphone requirements, one of the key elements is the simple to use form factor design that depicts the theme via its adaptable functionality. We call this 1on1 convergence: in this case it must look, feel and be used like a traditional camera. Familiarity with conventional usage is important.

I think the 3 factors that the MEX conference explored of Understanding, Context and Delight are integral to developing the right user experience.

‘Good experience’ is almost self-referential and could better be replaced with this mouthful: an experience that results in loyalty, warm feelings and often word of mouth.

To bring the best user experience we need to hide the technology and use it as an enabler so the benefits jump out. A delightful experience will exploit the embedded innovations to present the true essence of the packaged, hence enhancing its value proposition. Its all about what technology can do for you and what you can do with technology. To quote Leo Tolstoy: “… and where there is no simplicity, goodness & truth, there can be no greatness.”

This enables the product story to be carefully built with key differentiation and innovative aspects being appropriately highlighted.

Despite its size it was very compelling. I even had a student write a BASIC program which used SMS to send a time stamp with latitude and longitude data from a PC, which also had a GPS unit connected to it. This became a basic mobile navigation system.

Another interesting application for SMS we launched internally in our company during 1993/94 was an Optus directory – an interactive database query service. Although we could see the potential but we never imagined the success SMS would bring after it took off exponentially from around 1996 onwards. As we know, it is still a big contributor to the data revenues for most MNOs.

I sometimes carry a two-piece solution with my voice-centric ultra-slim device (a BenQ-Siemens S68) as a PMG (Personal Mobile Gateway), with a Pocketsurfer internet message pad which has a VGA width display, and optimised full HTML browser. This is a good example of a distributed device architecture.

Sometimes, when I am commuting, I carry a music themed device – our Q-Fi EF51. With its hybrid form-factor and several music add-ons, it provides a compelling digital music player. Incidentally, Q-Fi is a sub-brand we recently launched for our core music device offerings.

Other times I carry our swiss-army knife P51 Windows Mobile 5 smartphone. I use it for business applications, along with Skype VoIP calling over Wi-Fi. I also use the Wayfinder navigation service with its built-in GPS. Some of the device’s fixed mobile convergence prospects carry forward to the connected or smart home experience.

I used the Blackberry service until recently to keep up with emails and am now in the process of trialing another push email solution. I was using our Siemens SK65, which was the first voice-centric device with the full Blackberry push email client.

For 3G services I use our EF81, as a stylish ultra-thin UMTS device. On this I use the imaging functionality with its 2 mega-pixel camera and Google Maps for some early LBS type applications.