Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
life is not getting significantly better; display sizes
are growing, and larger displays consume more
battery life than smaller ones. Some of the newer
devices are built with the idea of being online “all
the time”. When such a device is connected to a
network—irrespective of whether the connection
is via WLAN or 3G—battery life is being con-
sumed. If the connection is not good, a device will
run out of battery power even faster. In my work I
have observed that there seems to be differences
between countries and operators with respect to
battery life; across different operator networks,
users exhibiting similar service usage patterns
report very different experiences with respect to
battery life: users of one network can report that
they can use their devices for a whole day without
charging the battery, where users of other network
report that they need to charge their devices more
than once during the day. It would be beneficial
for user experience researchers to co-operate with
technical researchers to investigate this area; if
the network configuration can influence battery
life expectancy, it would be very useful to have
good data in this regard.
In relation to these two barriers to usage—cost
and battery life—the mobile technology industry
seems to be overly optimistic about how users
will behave and adopt the technology. I would
encourage researchers and developers, as well as
business professionals, to evaluate their percep-
tions and be careful not to get too excited.
The studies discussed in this article do not
consider device design in general, but the design
of a device does influence usage patterns. Al-
though screen size and keyboard did not surface
explicitly in studies as issues influencing usage
patterns, it is clear that they do exert influence on
interaction. Many new mobile devices have touch
screens and are designed to support information
scanning and point-and-click interaction. Norman
(2007) has noted that good Internet search engines
have encouraged users return to engage in “com-
mand based” browsing. The challenge is not only,
therefore, how best to design services that work
both for touch screens and non-touch screens,
but also increasingly how best to design services
that simultaneously support mobile device- and
desktop computer-based access—especially when
the devices support such different interactions.
Application integrated services were only fa-
miliar to a small number of users in 2007- 2008,
but this approach may be increasing for mobile
devices. As mentioned earlier, European and North
American early adopters believe that is the path to
take. Social networking service access is already
possible on mobile devices; when that becomes
more common, it will potentially change the level
of awareness of our social networks. For many
years I have discussed a particular concern with
users: they have seen positive aspects related to
services that allow them to be more connected with
their friends, to know where their friends are, and
what they are doing, but they have also, however,
expressed an occasional need for privacy, even
from their closest friends. Of course it is always
possible to turn a service off, but people do not want
to have to later explain to friends why they were
not available at a particular time: users comment
that they already have to explain too often why
they did not answer their phone or immediately
respond to text messages. Users also distinguish
between friends they have on their mobile phones
and friends on social network services; they do
not necessarily want to give hundreds of online
'friends' access to their very personal mobile
device (e.g., phone).
Since we carry mobile devices with us all the
time, it is possible to gather information about the
environment we are in. This potentially automati-
cally generated/collected data is richer for mobile
devices than would be possible for data gathered by
a stationary device. With current mobile devices, it
is possible to upload the information in real time;
it is also much easier to link together contextual
information, information about (and on) a device,
and services information to create data pools that
were not previously possible. This information
could be used for good or bad; it can potentially
Search WWH ::
Custom Search