Acording to a study by Nielsen Norman Group browsing the web from a mobile phone today is as bad as it was to browse the web from a desktop 15 years ago.

The users had difficulties doing everyday tasks on their mobile phones, like finding information about a specific wine or finding arrival info for a plane.

Some of the hurdles they found was:

• The screens are to small (users using phones with bigger screens had a higher succeed rate)
• It’s hard to type on the small keyboards on mobile phones
• The mobile Internet connections are to slow
• Sites designed for mobile phones did better than the desktop version, but it can be really hard to find the mobile version.

These findings are exactly what a colleague and I found in our master thesis – “The User Experience of the Internet on Mobile Phones” (4,8 mb PDF in danish)- which is from 2008. Here is a very boiled down section from the abstract:

Screens and keyboards are factors that feel like a hurdle and therefore reduce usage. Also, the speed or lack of it, when loading pages seems to be a hurdle.

Nielsen Norman Group found that users did better in solving their tasks on websites designed for mobile phones and they do suggest, like we did, that servers should auto-sense users’ devices and auto-forward mobile users to the mobile site. I simply don’t understand why companies use money on getting a mobile website designed and then don’t do this simple operation.

Nielsen Normans Group used three usability methods. My colleague and I made our master thesis on basis of interviews, focus groups and surveys. But the results are pretty much the same.

Screens on mobile phones is getting bigger. That is good because Jakob Nielsen says bigger screens leads to better usability. One reason mobile phones is getting bigger screens is that mobile phones just isn’t mobile phones anymore. They have become cameras, mp3-players and internet devices as well. All this new functionality requires a bigger screen compared to what is necessary for just making phone calls.

But even though i do agree with Jakob Nielsen that bigger screens leads to better usability, the usability is of course also depended of the design presented on the screen. As Buchanan et. al. state it in Improving Mobile Internet Usability one problem is that the design isn’t tailored to the screen size. Designers try to fill a sheet of paper even though what they are designing for is a Post-it.

The article The Myth of a Big Screen, Treating the symptoms rather than the cause state it this way:

“Making the screen bigger is just the current fashionable red herring to distract you from the plain and simple fact that the vendors can’t get the design right.”

These articles are from 2000 and 2001 and therefore im surprised to witness the new Samsung Instinct and specially the design of the browser on the Instinct.

But let’s first have a look on how Apple designed Safari on their iPhone. Both the iPhone and the Instinct have big screens. But they still have small screens for web surfing. To give the user the best experience it may be logic to use every possible pixel on the screen for content.

When scrolling in Safari on the iPhone the URL text field will disapear as you scroll down the page giving more space for content. But still there is 20 pixels used for the Status bar in the top and 44 pixels being used in the Button bar in the bottom.

I think it’s a good decision made by the Safari designers to let the URL text field disapear because on such a small device every single pixel used for content counts.

Therefore i was kind of puzzled when i saw the design of the browser on the Instinct. The Instinct as well as the iPhone has a URL text field in the top. Instead of a Button bar in the bottom, the Instinct designers have chosen to use space on both the left and the right side of the screen for buttons. This gives very little space for the content.

Luckily the designers have made it possible to enter a Full Screen View by touching an icon. The strange thing is, that a Full Screen View on an Instinct isn’t what i would expect from a Full Screen View. The only thing that disapears when you touch the icon is the URL text field leaving all buttons in on the left side of the screen.

The best aproach i have seen so far on designing a browser for mobile phones is Firefox. Though Firefox for mobile phones isn’t released yet a video shows how the Firefox mobile phone team have aproached the design challenge and have understood that on a small screen every single pixel used for content counts. All pixels are used for content which i think will lead to a better user experience than on both Safari on the iPhone and especially the browser on the Samsung Instinct.

To reach the navigation buttons on Firefox you have to scroll your finger to the right which reveals navigation bottons on the left side of the viewpoint. This aproach is very clever. Firefox use every single pixel for content which is what users are interested in when they read/scan pages.

It seems odd to me that the Firefox browser and the Samsung Instinct browser are designet the same year. The Safari browser does a deasent job but could learn from Firefox. But the Instinct seems to be designet before 2000 where the article mentionet at the top stated

“Making the screen bigger is just the current fashionable red herring to distract you from the plain and simple fact that the vendors can’t get the design right.”

It’s great mobile phones now have bigger screens which makes it easier to surf the internet on mobile phones. But to what use is the bigger screens when designers just don’t understand that we are not interested in their design but content?

In this post “User experience factor 1: state glue” Martijn van Welie descripes the feedback you get from the iPhone when you delete a mail.

I think Martijn van Welie is right on spot when stating that the iPhones feedback “leads to a very satisfying experience”.

it’s particular important with tactile feedback from a device when there is no physical feedback like haptic feedback. On the iPhone it is well done with small “movie clips”.

The user needs to know that something is happening and what it is that is happening when interacting with a device in order to be able to know if the action was the expected one.

The iPhone does it in a way that makes you do it just for fun, show it to your friends or write a interesting post about it. I myself is being found guilty on all counts.

Design For Mobile will be the first North American mobile user experience conference. This will be a two-day conference focused on strategy and tactics for user research, product definition, interaction and other design, and usability testing. A day of workshops and training will preceed the conference sessions.

One among many usability rules Steve Krug is famous for is something like, “It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.”

I think thats right most of the time. But on the iPhone i have found one of exeption. I enable or disable WiFi whether i need it or not to conserve battery life. And from day one as an iPhone owner i have wondered why it takes so many clicks to do just that. (4 to be exact. Settings – WiFi – enable/disable – Home button. And thats only if you connect to a WiFi you have used before. Otherwise it’s at least 5.)

Am i the only person in the world who don’t want to waste unnecessary juice and who think that 4 clicks to enable/disable WiFi is way to many clicks even though “each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice”?

No i’m not. Luckily there exist an application called WiFiToggle to solve just that “problem”. Additional to a hacked iPhone you need to add “http://repo.ispazio.net” as a source in the Installer. After that you can find WiFiToggle in the Utilities folder. From now on enabling or disabling WiFi is down to 2 clicks. And that really does matter.

En nylig undersøgelse fra Rubicon Consulting viser, at circa 30% af iPhone-ejere går rundt med 2 telefoner (PDF). En naturlig forklaring kunne være, at mange bærer rundt på både en arbejds- og privattelefon. En anden forklaring kunne være, at mange i forvejen har en “FamilyPlan” som de ønsker at bruge når de ringer til familiemedlemmer. En tredje forklaring, og grunden til at jeg bærer rundt på 2 telefoner, er iPhonens mangler.

Selv om iPhonen er min gamle telefon (SE K800i) overlegen på flere punkter, så er der funktioner jeg savner, og har vænnet mig til at bruge:

• Kamera
• Radio
• “Internetmodem” til laptop

Kamera:
iPhonen har et kamera. Men i både funktioner og kvalitet ligger det milevidt bag det kamera der sidder i Sony Ericssons Cyber-shot mobiltelefoner. Især mangler jeg muligheden for at tilpasse farvetemperatur og fokus. Men den generelle billedekvalitet er også bare for dårlig. Jeg har været på flere ferier hvor mon K800i var eneste kamera. Det vil jeg ikke kunne med iPhonen. Billedekvaliteten er for dårlig til feriebilleder.

Radio:
Jeg bruger radioen i min K800i rigtig meget når jeg går til og fra mit studie. Det er blevet en vane at lytte til P1 morgen og eftermiddag og den vane har jeg ikke tænkt at lægge fra mig bare fordi der ikke er radio i iPhonen.

“Internetmodem”:
Fra tid til anden er jeg på farten og væk fra internet. Da er jeg vant til at forbinde minlaptop til min K800i via Bluetooth og på den måde få 3G mobilt internet. iPhonen tillader desværre ikke at oprette forbindelse over Bluetooth til andet end headsets og selv om muligheden var der mangler der 3G.

Uanset disse mangler er jeg meget glad for min iPhone. Nu giver det pludselig mening at tilgå internettet fra sin telefon. Browseren er en “rigtig” browser og skærmen har en størrelse så forstørrelsesglas ikke er nødvendigt. Og derudover hjælper zoom og scroll via touch skærmem med til at det er en god oplevelse og faktisk brugbart.

Russel Beattie, udvikleren af den mobile tjeneste Mowser som er en søgemaskine, der tilpasser websider så de kan læses på små skærme, anser det mobile internet for dødt. Med det mobile internet mener Russel Beattie websider der er 100% tilpasset til mobiltelefoner og som ikke har synlige fællestræk med det internet vi kender fra vores desktopcomputere.

Argumentet for det mobile internet, siger Russel Beattie, var, at der rundt regnet er 3 milliarder mobiltelefoner og når de kommer på internettet vil de langt overgå antallet af computere og derfor vælte trafikken mod mobiltelefonen som den primære enhed til at tilgå internettet. Det vil bare ikke ske, før der kommer bedre mobiltelefoner og “rigtige” browsere.

The problem is that these billions of users *haven’t* gotten on the Internet, and they won’t until the experience is better and access to the web is barrier-free – and that means better devices and “full browsers”. Let’s face it, you really aren’t going to spend any real time or effort browsing the web on your mobile phone unless you’re using Opera Mini, or have a smart phone with a decent browser – as any other option is a waste of time, effort and money. Users recognize this, and have made it very clear they won’t be using the “Mobile Web” as a substitute for better browsers, rather they’ll just stay away completely.

Som argument henviser han til tal fra M-Metrics der viser, at i USA går 85% af iPhoneejere på nettet fra deres mobiltelefon mod 58% smartphoneejere og kun 13% af det samlede mobilmarked. Om de tal så siger noget som helst om, om det er iPhonen i sig selv, der er skyld i det høje tal, eller om det er fordi der automatisk følger fri internet med iPhonen, når man husker at aktivere det “obligatoriske” AT&T-abonnement er en helt anden diskussion.

Jeg tror ikke, at det er én faktor, der er afgørende for, om folk tilgår internettet fra deres mobiltelefon, men at det bestemmes af en række faktorer, som alle er med til at bestemme brugernes samlede user experience af det mobile internet og dermed deres adoption af det. Det kunne blandt andet være faktorer som skærmens størrelse, at man selv skal installere en ordentlig browser, opsætningen af teleudbyderens internetindstillinger på telefonen, tastaturet, uigennemskuelige priser (afregning pr. mb), hastigheden, generel usability på telefonen og så videre.

Men det er en helt tredje diskussion, som jeg forhåbentlig ved meget mere om, når jeg afleverer mit speciale 1 august, som netop handler om brugeroplevelsen af det mobile internet.

Efter min mening er iPhonen med dens qwerty-tastatur langt bedre at skrive på end min gamle telefons 9-taster keyboard. Dog er jeg ikke tilfreds med telefonens autocorrection-funktion, der automatisk foreslår nye ord fra telefonens ordbog hvis den ikke kender det ord man taster.

Autocorrection står i vejen for at jeg kan taste hurtigt. Min konsentration skal fordeles mellem at ramme tasterne og at holde øje med om telefonen foreslår et forkert ord.

Foreslår telefonen et forkert ord er jeg nødt til at fjerne fingrene fra tasterne og føre dem til tekstfeltet i stedet for at fjerne forslaget.

Idéen er jo god og minder om T9 ordbogen på min gamle telefon. Jeg tror forskellen er, at hvor min gamle telefon havde fysiske knapper med der tilhørende taktilt feedback. Det tillader, at jeg ikke kigger på skærmen mens jeg taster. iPhonen har ikke nogen form for taktilt eller “følt” feedback og jeg er derfor nødt til at se på tasterne når jeg skriver.

En lille del af forklaringen er sikkert også om iPhonen foreslår mange rigtige rettelser eller mange forkerte rettelser. Da man skal udføre en handling for at omgå rettelsen giver det meget ekstra arbejde hvis telefonen tit foreslår noget forkert. For mit vedkommende ville det være bedre hvis jeg skulle gøre noget aktivt for at acceptere rettelsen, men då er det jo ikke autocorrection mere, men nærmere en suggest correction i stedet.

Jeg forstår slet ikke at Apple ikke har tilføjet muligheden for at kunne fjerne denne funktion. Så vidt jeg kan læse mig frem til er funktionen til stede i softwaren, men skjult. Heldigvis er der en venlig sjæl der har skrevet et hack, som bringer funktionen frem i indstillingsmenuen og derved gør det muligt at slå autocorrection til og fra i iPhonen, og en anden venlig sjæl, har skrevet en letforståelig guide om, hvordan man indstallerer hacket der giver mulighed for at slå autocorrection fra i iphonen.

7 User Experience Lessons from the iPhone
internal presentation, given in mid January 2007, to introduce our newly formed user experience group to the development team.

Mobile takes the web back to the 90s
Does this mean that mobile internet is effectively 8 years behind the web as we know it today?

Certainly the content that can be delivered is basic. I am sure if we scour the industry we can still find some die-hard HTML coders to build these sites. I am sure designers can be prized away from Flash to build some basic 16 colour designs.

Mobile phone use increases tumor risk
The current study showed, according to an Israel newspaper, that people used mobile phone for more than 22 hours per month faced 50 percent increased risk for a parotid gland tumor.

Why The Mobile Web Had Such A Terrible Start
First attempts by mobile phone manufacturers to mobilize the web were a big disappointment for quite a number of reasons. In the fixed line world the web got an incubation time of at least a decade to grow, to be refined and to be fostered by researchers and students at universities before being used by the public who already had sufficiently capable notebooks, PCs and a reasonably priced connection to the Internet. In the mobile world, things were a lot different when first web browsers appeared on mobile phones around the year 2001.

JupiterResearch Finds Creating Better Browser Alternatives Would Stimulate Mobile Internet Adoption
“Browser alternatives such as widgets or applets, which are mini applications that allow for content to be easily accessed from a home screen or with just a few clicks, can meet consumer demands for quick access to information,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. “The goal should be to engage the user through ease of operation so that accessing information in this manner will eventually become second nature.”

Nokia sees HD video on cellphones in a few years
Video recording on cellphones is set to reach high definition (HD) quality in a few years’ time, an executive at the world’s top cellphone maker Nokia said on Wednesday.

“It’s coming. Technically, we are a couple of years away,” Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanpera told Reuters in an interview. “It’s still a few years away.”

Google’s Android targets iPhone power
London’s role is to come up with brilliant new ways to use the internet on a mobile phone. European mobile internet may not be mass market yet, but users here are leagues ahead of their American cousins. Which makes the UK one of the best places to test new products and find software developers who understand the medium.