Mobile User Experience

Thomas Husson | September 09, 2005, 01:28 PM

Just come back from a couple of days in London where I attended the MEX conference. What is this all about? Mobile User Experience. Quite an interesting and often forgotten subject. At least unusual for a mobile conference, that is to say not dealing with the usual suspects : phone as the new i-pod killer, the new TV platform or the new wallet... You'll find some info on this website. If mobile data usage is growing, we are still far away from SMS levels, so it is good to know alternative models from the traditional "click and wait" browsing experience are emerging (new technologies such as cached web content or client/server applications with Action Engine, SurfKitchen and Macromedia Flash among others).
Beyond technologies, commercial and pricing issues, ergonomy should be the priority : services have to be obvious (just one key to press and not 5 different menus), intuitive and jargon-free (who cares what java is? who knows about EDGE?). Easy to say but not really done so far. Consumers are likely to use new multimedia services but hey it has to be handed to them on a plate !!!