Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
efficient arbitration and reliable enforcement of
redress decisions in the case of failed transactions
(Bajaj & Leonard, 2004). This is not the same in
developing countries. Such factors will decide the
acceptance and/or failure rates of mobile services
especially those involving some form of financial
transaction.
Adoption and use of the mobile Internet is
highly dependent on the language and the literacy
level in developing countries. Studies carried out in
India show that the majority of the mobile phones
are available in English only; however, most of
the people know only basic English. Also, it was
found that there was a clear dependence on younger
people for any help regarding the operation and
use of mobile phones (Joshi, 2006).
In developing countries, the need for and
consumption of mobile Internet (or Internet-like)
services also depend on the economic status of
the user population. For example, small farmers
worldwide have traditionally been at the mercy
of middlemen and have been victims of their own
lack of timely information. A private firm, Kenya
Agricultural Commodities Exchange (KACE),
has contracted with the African mobile provider
Safaricom Limited to sell timely market informa-
tion and intelligence via SMS. Although farmers
who can pay for SMS services are not among the
poorest of the poor, many of them aren't very
much richer (Rheingold, 2005).
Lu et al. (2008) have studied the adoption of
the mobile Internet in China. They point out that
a strong current trend in China is Internet data
services delivered via mobile phones because the
wireless telecommunication infrastructure is more
completely developed than its fixed-line coun-
terpart and mobile phones are more affordable.
The design of mobile Internet-based services
should be sensitive to the social, economic and
cultural situations of the users. The design should
address issues such as what is the 'perceived
reliability' and trust in services among the target
users, how much does the service cost, and are
the services available in the local language or in
basic English.
MOBILE SERVICES
Each service provider can improve the user experi-
ence of his/her service by considering mobile users
when designing the main site or by implementing
a separate version of the site for mobile users. In
the following we will analyze the motivations for
implementing unique mobile services and give
recommendations of future service possibilities
based on mobile values.
Mobile Version of Existing Service
vs. Unique Mobile Service
An important decision regarding the implementa-
tion of individual services is whether to provide
mobile users access to the existing web service
or whether to provide a separate mobile service.
Services specifically designed for mobile use can
take into account the limitations of the mobile
devices and networks. The services can even
utilize special facilities of the mobile device
and contextual information such as location or
tag-based information in the environment. With
ordinary web content mobile user experience is
not always good. The layout of the site may be
too complex to be easily navigated, the site may
be slow and it may include elements that do not
work on the mobile device. Sites specifically de-
signed for mobile devices can offer content that
is easier and quicker to access but maintaining
it may not be affordable for the service provider
unless mobile usage is a significant part of the
usage. Figure 3 illustrates the difference between
accessing the main web site and accessing a site
specially designed for mobile use.
In his recent Alertbox article, Jakob Nielsen
(2009) proposes that for the best user performance,
you should design different websites for each
mobile device class — regular cellphones, smart-
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