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Thank you to everyone who voted in our recent poll asking for your device highlights from MWC. The results are now in…and it appears that Sony Ericsson captured your imagination. 30% of you said that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 pro was your highlight, while 24% of you also chose the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini. Windows Phone 7 Series was also up there, also gaining 24% of your votes.
Thanks again to everyone who took part and voted.
- Paul Brown
This weekend I went along to see the England v Ireland Rugby game in 3D. Sponsored by O2, this was the second game to be broadcast in around 40 cinemas across the UK.
Despite all the hype around Avatar and other films this was the first time I had been to see anything in 3D. It was also the first time for watching a live sports event in the cinema, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. From a technical point of view, I couldn’t fault what I saw - at times, it felt like I was actually inside Twickenham.
Watching the game in a cinema did not quite create the same atmosphere as watching it in a pub – there were a few cheers when England scored, and even more groans when Ireland scored, but no chanting. Maybe the banning of alcohol inside was to blame here! Also, if you are in a pub you can move away from the annoying person standing next to you – something not possible with allocated seating in a cinema!
So, while I left disappointed by the final result, I can definitely see the potential for viewing live sport in 3D to enhance the user experience, provided it is broadcast in the appropriate context - traditionally at home or in a pub (as BSkyB recently offered with Premier League Football).
- Paul
So another Mobile World Congress is over. In between running from meeting to meeting, I did manage to spend a bit of time looking around the show. If Mobile World Congress 2009 was all about touchscreens, 2010 was all about the end user. The following are some of the main announcements from Barcelona that have the user experience at the forefront:
Samsung Wave
From the giant billboard on the bull ring for outside the Fira, to the massive crowded stand, it was hard to avoid the Samsung Wave. The stand had station after station highlighting different features of the Wave, from social networking to widgets. Advanced TouchWiz UI 3.0 allows the user to customize the menu, while the Super AMOLED display looked very sharp. This was particularly impressive when demonstrating the gaming experience the Wave offered.
HTC Desire, Legend and HD Mini
HTC announced 2 Android devices (Desire and Legend) and 1 Windows Mobile 6.5 device (HD Mini). All devices feature Sense UI, with an enhanced Sense on the Desire and Legend. Friend Stream gives users an even greater personalized experience, while Leap gives a great picture overview of applications currently open, similar to Windows Vista.
Motorola Quench
The Quench is Motorola’s first Android handset that is touchscreen only. The form factor is likely to appeal more in Europe than previous devices the Milestone and DEXT, especially to younger consumers, due to the ability to change the covers of the device. Quench also features MOTOBLUR, which Strategy Analytics believe will help to drive mobile social networking engagement.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini and X10 pro
The Xperia X10 mini and X10 mini pro are both based on Android. The customizable UI allows access to four applications from the homescreen – one in each corner. This has been designed for one-handed use, with each corner icon easy to access. Timescape also allows users to surface relevant content from a multitude of applications.
Windows Phone 7 Series
While there were no phones available running Windows Phone 7 Series, the demonstrations drew in big crowds. Windows Phone simplifies the user experience by having 2 homescreens. One is customizable, offering high versatility, and deep levels of personalization, while the second screen is simple, listing applications in alphabetical order. In contrast to Android, Microsoft is aiming to standardize the user interface to improve control over the user experience – OEMs such as HTC will not be able to add in their own layer on top of Windows Phone 7.
Sagem Puma Phone
Sagem and Puma may not sound like the most obvious combination of brands, but they have combined well to make an impressive feature phone. The UI moves away from the out-dated grid menu structure, while the solar panel on the back means the user can charge the phone while on the go – though how effective that is remains to be seen. The device also features nice little touches, such as how many messages have been powered by the sun. The sports apps should appeal to innovative new segments.
2010 was the first Mobile World Congress where the user experience played a prominent role in all major device launches. Personalization and customization were key drivers, with handset vendors starting to realize that to successfully compete with Apple they need to provide an enhanced user experience around context, convergence and compelling experiences.
- Paul
Strategy Analytics has recently completed a series of in-home interviews and observations with a segment that we call “connected media consumers” – i.e. individuals who connect their home entertainment devices to the web to access and view digital media content on their televisions. By taking an ethnographic approach, we identified four key motivators for adopting media connectivity that are common across those we studied.
• They want a more personalized TV experience. Having access to web-based content on their TVs frees them from the standard cable/satellite TV schedules, allowing them to watch what they want, when they want, and where they want. This also enables them to pay just for the content they are interested in.
• They want to customize the TV experience – i.e. to control and configure their set up to optimize it to their situation and preferences. For example, being able to choose the way they see advertising on Hulu.com is important to them.
• The discovery of new content is also important. They use services such as Pandora online radio because they like how it suggests new music based on their established interests and preferences. The ability to discover new, and importantly relevant, content is a compelling part of digital media entertainment for these consumers.
• And finally, they want a more social TV experience, so that they can share their experiences with friends and family, both physically and virtually. They are at the forefront of the convergence between social networking and digital media.
The full findings of this study, which includes insights into barriers to adoption and unmet needs of connected media consumers, are available for purchase here: Profiling the Connected Media Consumer: a Contextual Study.
I’ve set up my Google Buzz account, and first impressions are that – at least by Google standards – the user experience is a bit disappointing.
Buzz, of course, is Google’s new social networking feature which debuted this week to some Gmail users. It takes some positive features from Twitter and Facebook, but lacks certain others which doesn’t make it worth my while.
First off, set up was a breeze. The layout is still somewhat simple, though a bit busier than Google’s typical standards. Most of the clutter was due to an otherwise helpful introduction box. Here Buzz informs you that you can connect to outside sites such as Google Reader, Picassa, and Google Chat – more on that later. Once the intro box goes away, you’re back to the simple Google style.
Posting is simple, and takes the best features of other social networking sites and combines it into one. First, the length of posts are seemingly unconstrained, and you can include pictures, videos, and links. Buzz also provides options for making the post public, like Twitter, or private, like Facebook. Others can also comment or click to “like” a status. On my mobile, incoming buzz appears with my normal Gmail (though I can’t post from my mobile). If Buzz catches on, look for a Buzz add-on to Android, as combining Gmail and Buzz in one inbox would be too cluttered for moderate and heavy users.
However, where Buzz falls short is in its connections to outside sites. Buzz isn’t particularly up front about it, but you can connect to Twitter. Unfortunately, it’s a one-way connection. Your Twitter comments appear on your Buzz page, but your Buzz will never find its way on Twitter. And Facebook? Sorry, completely out of luck. So any posts on Buzz will only be seen by other Buzz users.
It would also be nice to be able to import or at least search for your Twitter and Facebook contacts, but again, that can’t be done. You automatically follow your Gmail contacts on Buzz, which is at least a step up from Twitter, but more help is needed, particularly at this stage of the game.
So where will Google Buzz go? Well, one may look to Yahoo for the answer, which provides a similar service for its email users, but has yet to catch the public’s attention. And if Facebook, which has gained quite a mobile presence, comes out with their rumored email account service, that could put quite a dent into Google’s armor. But for now, I’m not likely to use Buzz.
We have now undertaken over 20 UX benchmark evaluations of touchscreen mobile devices, and we find that consumers overwhelmingly demonstrate a strong preference for touchscreen interfaces that are optimized for the finger touch input approach.
This means making all functions easily accessible via the touchscreen – even when duplicate hard keys are also available, as in taking a picture with the camera. It also means removing some legacy telephony-based paradigms such as the concept of ‘soft keys’.
These constructs are highly familiar to mobile device users, but our research suggests that those consumer segments who have already adopted, or are keen to adopt, touchscreen technology typically consider the touchscreen interface as a new paradigm, one that they do not readily associate with a traditional ITU-T interface.
To them, artificially recreating a simulation of a phone interface only makes sense for the telephony-centric features of the touchscreen device (e.g. the layout of the virtual dial pad in the ‘phone’ function). For text input on a touchscreen device, they overwhelmingly embrace a QWERTY layout, and for applications and services that look like an application they would use on the web, they generally expect a web-page style layout.
As the penetration of smartphones continues to rise, Strategy Analytics believes that the era of the ‘mobile phone’ is ending in favor of the era of the ‘mobile computing device’. We encourage developers to design their interfaces appropriately to deliver compelling experiences on the basis of this new paradigm.
Nokia announced yesterday that Ovi Maps will now be free forever on all GPS-enabled Nokia devices. This announcement was more a matter of “when” than a matter of “if”, given last year’s move by Google to offer free turn-by-turn nav on the Motorola Droid and future Android devices. While Google’s announcement shook the navigation world, SA maintained that it would not spell doom for PNDs (see “TomTom and Garmin Will Survive Despite Google’s Entry Into Turn By Turn”). Nokia’s announcement will have much less impact.
From an industry perspective, once Google’s announcement was made, PND manufacturers realized that basic navigation functionality was commoditized, and began hatching plans to differentiate their products by focusing on connected devices and other location-based service enhancements.
The announcement has the potential to have a greater impact in Europe given Nokia’s market share in that region and how consumers, at least in the UK, are ready to embrace mobile navigation. However, impact is still going to be limited by the number of consumers who shell out for data plans.
From a user experience perspective, our research has shown that the user experience for mobile navigation is poor. Can you picture driving 60mph down the road trying to key in a destination on a 12-key Nokia 6700? Then squinting to see the next street name on the small display? Consumers want to interact with a navigation system while driving that has a large display and touchscreen within easy reach. Mobile devices – even smartphones with full touchscreen displays – just aren’t as compelling an experience as a dedicated PND.
While free mobile navigation will challenge PND manufacturers to quickly develop new compelling experiences to differentiate themselves, many consumers will still choose them for a better overall experience provided by a dedicated navigation device.
There are similar parallels in the mobile industry. Integrating cameras and music into mobile devices didn’t bring wipe out the market for digital cameras and portable music players. Consumers still own those devices for better quality, dedicated functionality, and a better user experience. The same will happen with PNDs.
Strategy Analytics has found that Facebook and Google are the brands that users most want to have on their mobile phone in 2009. Personalized content and services are more desirable than media brands, with Yahoo! rated highly in the USA and UK, while MapQuest and Weather.com in the US and MSN in the UK both received strong interest from respondents. When it comes to television channels, US respondents show strong interest in FOX, Comedy Central and HBO, while BBC1 and Sky Movies are the most desired UK channels.
The top five most desired brands in each country were:
| US | UK | |
| 1. Google 2. Facebook 3. Yahoo! 4. MapQuest 5. Weather.com |
1. Facebook 2. Google 3. MSN 4. YouTube 5. Yahoo! |
|
| . |
WML clients can view the full report, Facebook and Google Most Desired Brands for Mobile.
Paul Brown
In October the Garmin nüvifone G60 was launched in the US through AT&T. Strategy Analytics User Experience team conducted an assessment of the nüvifone with existing mobile navigation users in San Diego, CA. Key findings from the study include:
Positive User Experiences
POI search
Threaded text messaging
Capability to engage in phone calls while navigating
User Experience Issues
Scrolling on touchscreen frustrating for many
Home key access not intuitive
Lack of home screen customization
Inability to change format of virtual keyboard
Lack of multiple tabs on browser
Lack of video and other advanced camera features
A full report will be available to Automotive Consumer Insights clients in the near future.
Thanks to everyone who voted in our first poll.
The results are in…and it turns out that only 21% of you would buy a phone made from wood. 43% of you said maybe. As someone said to me on Twitter (and I commented in a previous blog post), “it is more important what’s inside the phone. (wooden) Cover is minor thing”
Keep an eye out for further polls coming soon…
Paul