Handset Manufacturer's role in future Mobile UX

Mobile Trends

For last 5ys or so, we have seen a gradual transition of mobile popularity from a simple feature phone to a feature rich smart phone. I think, this transitions is also fueled by growth of social networking websites, collaborative gamings, music downloads, 3G/4G, LTE services, easy GPS access, etc. Whenever i see any mobile Advertisement, they show facebook and messenger chats on the mobile homescreens. The importance of handset hardware and form-factor is diminishing. Its shown as mear rectangular block with a large screen.  The software & content delivery is overtaking it. The TV and newspaper Ads dont show the mobile form factor, but the Apps Icons on the homescreen. The whole focus has shifted. 

Mobile OS companies and their strategies

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Because of good ecosystem trend set by Apple(iPhone) and Google Android, any developer in the world can realize his idea into a Mobile App and sell it too. The design and beauty of a mobile is now not limited to the small in-house UI team who usually dont have time.  The earlier smart OS was only dominated by Microsoft who made windows mobile OS by just copying the PC ui without thinking mobile user needs. They did provided a dirty appendix called "Stylus" to solved their own "non-Touchable Tiny-Icon" problems. And users were left with carrying another gadget(Stylus) like PC mouse.  Microsoft also made a half cooked OS and left to handset manufacturers to clean the design and make it usable. This also provided UI teams in handset companies like (LG, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, etc) a chance to provide a differentiating unique UI for their brand even if all were using same windows OS. But actual Users had to suffer for OS updates as they had to depend on the handset manufacturer rather then Microsoft. This was because, the handset company had screwed the OS with their customization and direct update is not possible now. This case is true for Android too as you cannot easily upgrade the OS. Well, Google at least releases new updates frequently as against Microsoft doing one update after 2-3yrs.  Apple is the only company where any user can update OS immediately after Apple releases new OS, no matter which part of world he is and which carrier he is on. This strategy is now being copied by Google and Microsoft. Going forward, Google and Microsoft will not allow for UI customization by handset comapny, which is very good, provided Google and Microsoft do not make half baked UIs. 

Another famous smart phone is Symbian OS based phones by Nokia. This OS was only used by Nokia untill this year. I personally like Symbian more then windows. It was easy and not the PC way atleast. But I wonder why Nokia didnt made any Apps store, and made it horribly difficult for developer to develop apps and impossible for users to download it. They never did it untill now, may be 2009, as they see a threat from Apple. To get a symbian app you have to go to some 3rd party website, download it, then transfer that .sis file to your phone, then certify it and install it. Well, Symbian was not allowed for any other company other then Nokia. But Windows mobile was licensed to other hardware manufacturers. Nokia has now abandoned this Symbian OS as it was originally designed for buttons based ui. Now its the time of Gestures and touch screens and symbian is an outdated OS. So you have to rewrite it from scratch. I think they are looking at LiMo OS or MeGo.  Similarly, Microsoft Windows mobile OS was neither for good for touch screen, nor for hardware buttons UI. Till date, iPhone and Android are the only full touch screen and gesture based UIs. 

Its just shame that Microsoft and Nokia never cared for end to end experience. Nokia has recently in 2009 put the ovi.com store to make the apps for Symbian OS. Microsoft is still dreaming of the Window 7 OS to be launched late 2010. 

 

The Big Question for Mobile UI Designers in Handset companies ?

OK, the smart phone is all about creating a scalable and easy OS. This OS is supposed to be invisible and the Apps more visible.

If smartphones OS are going to get cheap and developers around the world are going to build apps on the smart OS, thus making the phone(eg.iphone) better and better everyday, then what are UX designers in handset companies going to do ? Is there any role left for UX designers of handset companies in defining future mobile UI. ? Because 90% of UI is done by Apps developers and their designers. 

Handset company will only provide industrial design, large good capacitive screen, Good camera and all kinds of sensors. Then its upto Apps developers and their designer to build that phone and give it a shape.

Posted via email from Sameer Chavan's Design Blog

Rise of Smart phones & Fall of Feature phones. The trend of designing mobile UI for specific user group is slowly diminishing.

With the news of withdrawal of Microsoft kin mobiles(Project Pink), for whatever rumored reasons, I am wondering if there was really a need for different UI for different user segments. As Kin phones were targeted for Teens with low cost and cloud storage and sync, the same can be achieved with just a change of skins to OS based phones. The OS based phones already offer social applications, cloud syncing, multimedia and games. Here i am talking about phones like iPhone & Android. Windows 7 is still not out in the market.

Traditionally all the hardware companies made many mobile phones , each targeted for 'so-called' different user groups - college going, business users, multimedia users, gaming users, etc. And accordingly the price and features are added or removed from each phone to create thousands of models. Non of these phones are perfect for anyone. Forget the UI design.  Do you really need so many variety of phones from same company ? or only one phone for all, like iPhone from Apple. Yes, Apple only has one phone. 

I use iPhone for emails, photos, cloud syncing, etc. all the day.  When i go home, my 3yr daughter uses my iPhone very easily to navigate to games and play games. She even tries to download new games from apps store icon. One day I was very surprised to receive iTunes receipt for new game downloaded(by my daughter). My wife uses my phone for checking her social networking and messengers. So one single phone is satisfying needs for different users. 

I feel that, as the cost of mobile OS goes down along with the cost of hardware(memory, processor), everyone would love to have a OS based phones then these proprietary feature phones made by hardware companies. The advantage of OS phones is that you can add new applications, update the OS with new features and really customize it. Feature phones dont offer any of this. You have to just throw the phone if it becomes outdated. 

If you realize now, the word PDA has lost its value. Few years back Microsoft popularized the term PDA with windows CE phones. They differentiated themself with phones having capability to add memory, document editing and emailing. I wonder why these phones were kept purposely low multimedia standard. They would always have a bad camera and no music player or FM. Blackberry phones followed the same strategy . The reasoning was, business users are machines and they dont have human feeling to take pictures and listen to music. What a shit!. Why would you prevent anyone from doing so. Ya, just to make another category of mobile phones. Sales strategy !. Thanks to new term, Smart Phones, you now have every feature of business phones along with all multimedia. The line between business phone and multimedia phone has vanished. These new category of Smart phones satisfy every category of users. They are OS based. 

Another term that become popular is Apps Store. Ya, with iPhone having more then 100,000 apps in its Apps Store and that too mostly at $0.99, it has really become affordable for everyone. Moreover Apple made it very easy to add applications, whereas Microsoft and Nokia had terrible application download process.  Think of any idea on mobile and you will find an application in app store. The Apps store provides something for every user category. Now, where is the question of designing the whole phone for only one user group. If the OS offers flexibility to customize the layout, style and information on screen, there is no need to design for just specific category of users.  Instead, have a generic OS and allow for applications designed for specific user groups. This enables you to have only one phone and one OS satisfying every user. Slowly the control of mobile UI design is getting transfered from handset manufacturer to Apps developer company. 

With the advent of multi touch screens the phone form factor has also reduced to a mear rectangular block with glass. The industrial design for handset company is minimalistic approach. Similar to OS apps , you can have different mobile covers to customize your mobile look & personality.  Some covers look business class(leathers) and other look funny for teens (yellow covers). The product industrial design is also commoditized. Users can change the design as they want.

 

Posted via email from Sameer's Scribblings