Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
garages for repairs, and petrol filling stations are
as much a part of the driving experience as the
car dashboard. Similarly, for the mobile user the
infrastructure in terms of wireless connectivity,
charging, and data synchronization is as much a
part of the mobile experience as the usability of
the device itself.
The heuristics presented here are focused
primarily on the use of the device itself and only
marginally refer to this mobile infrastructure.
Given that the heuristics reflect the current lit-
erature, clearly there is need for research in this
area, which then may lead to further heuristics or
guidelines for mobile infrastructure.
The influence of infrastructure can be thought
of as different kinds of connectivity: connectivity
to networks, connectivity to power, connectivity
to data and connectivity to location services.
Network connectivity is always of concern to
mobile phone users and it is still not uncommon
to see people hanging out of windows, or waving
phones in the air looking for signal. Heuristic 1
notes the importance of giving information on
“network status”, and phone users become profi-
cient at reading the signal bars on their phones. In
related technologies this is less well managed and
owners of digital radio sets often become confused
as digital stations seem to appear and disappear
without warning; whereas analog broadcasts
degrade slowly with distance, digital broadcasts
can either be interpreted perfectly from weak
signal, or not at all. Similarly WiFi networks are
seen as something akin to magic even by expert
computer users, both in terms of how displayed
signal levels correspond to actual access and in
terms of the means to obtain connections through
multiple levels of system property settings and
authentication dialogues. Clearly we are still a
long way from achieving even this simple goal
of Heuristic 1.
The variability of network connectivity has
been made a deliberate design feature in the no-
tion of
seamful design
(Chalmers et al., 2004).
Observations of network-based mobile games
showed that players rapidly became aware that
they could use patches of good or poor network
connectivity in order to give them advantage dur-
ing game play. This then led to games specifically
designed using this notion.
Heuristic 8 on error management, while being
partly general advice and partly about minimizing
dialogue, is also indirectly related to connectivity.
It is needed precisely because the user is far away
from documentation, user guides, and expert help,
and cannot rely on online help because of small
screen size.
Heuristic 1 also notes the importance of
“battery status”. While battery technology has
progressed remarkably, it is still one of the limit-
ing factors for mobile devices, so much so that in
some UK motorway service stations there are small
racks of mobile phone lockers near the entrance
where you can leave your phone to charge while
you eat. The larger issues surrounding this are not
mentioned in the heuristics, as a designer has little
influence over them, but certainly standardization
of power supply would seem an important step in
reducing the plethora of power adaptors so many
of us carry while traveling, as well as making
public power-charging facilities easier to manage.
Interestingly, power is not unrelated to network
connectivity, as mobile phones consume more
power if they have to connect to more distant
radio masts. However, few users are aware of
these interactions and an application of Heuristic 1
would be to give users a better feel for these things.
Heuristic 1 also notes the importance of mini-
mizing data loss. This is related both to privacy
(not losing data to others) and to data recovery.
Data synchronization has a long history, back to
early systems such as the CODA file system (Kis-
tler et al., 1992; Braam, 1998), but still seems to
be only poorly managed in practice. While there
are ways to synchronize data between mobile
devices and desktop systems, the fact that devices
are connected through mobile networks could be
used more widely to seamlessly backup crucial
information such as phone address books. As
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