Sian Townsend, at the time a user experience researcher with Google, spoke at MEX in May 2009 on mobile user experience in the emerging markets of Africa. 2009 was a time when hundreds of millions of users in developing countries were joining mobile networks for the first time and Google set out to understand what the concept of ‘search’ meant for these customers. Sian shares the results of research examining the questions people asked the first time they were able to connect to the web, providing a remarkable picture of users’ life priorities, which went on to shape Google’s approach to digital experience in these markets.

Marek Pawlowski

Marek Pawlowski is the founder of MEX. Since 1995, he has focused the MEX business on helping digital industries to develop better, more profitable products through improved understanding of user behaviour with mobile devices and wireless networks. MEX is best known for its events, research and consulting, which balance commercial, technical and user insights to define the future of mobile user experience.

Recent Posts

Design Talk 80. Digitally sustainable; Mirren Fischer, Founder, Brilliant Product Design

Mirren Fischer is someone who finds herself at the confluence of some really big challenges:…

5 years ago

Design Talk 79. Our future towns; Dan Phillips, Royal College of Art

Poetry and place...listening and lockdowns... Dan Phillips, who led the Royal College of Art's (RCA)…

5 years ago

Design Talk 78. Mark Baldino, co-founder, Fuzzy Math

Mark Baldino's path to co-founding a Chicago-based design agency wends its way from a degree…

5 years ago

Design Talk 77. Paul Campbell, Chief Product Officer, Centaur Robotics

Paul Campbell, a former chief designer at Ford, is now re-imagining the wheelchair at Centaur…

6 years ago

Interaction unintended

Opening the oven released a cloud of steam. I should have been expecting it. It's…

6 years ago

Design Talk 76. Placeful computing; Jared Ficklin, Chief Creative Technologist & founding partner, argodesign

Jared Ficklin's approach of 'think by making' has led him to produce remarkable digital design…

6 years ago