Redefining the mobile user experience [Usability News]
When we talk about redefining the mobile user experience, we are talking about changing this linear approach and encouraging everyone in the industry – whether they are a chipset manufacturer several stages removed from the end consumer or an MVNO seeking direct customer relationships – to improve their understanding of what users really want. Every component of a product has an impact on the overall customer experience and every component provider could benefit from a better insight into what drives these customers.
In 2004, PMN and Alloy, the award-winning British industrial design firm, initiated the Design for reality project to experiment with involving customers directly in the development of handsets. We spoke to users, we watched how they actually behaved in the real world and – once we’d identified some common needs – we divided the development team into clearly focused segments. In each segment we appointed a ‘user champion’ from among the members of the public we’d observed.
