On the MEX blog there’s an article  on how operator branding is limiting the user experience. The argument is that not everyone wants to use the phone the same way and that the user experience should be user-configurable.

First of all I am not totally sure about this. Most users probably don’t want to change such things. In fact, the majority are probably confused with the configuration possibilities they already have. Maybe its more a case of requiring the user experience to self-adapt to the user’s habits?

However, it’s disappointing when useful features get lost in the operator branding exercise. It’s even more disappointing when there’s a performance hit. Going one stage further, the customer loses trust in the network operator when they disable phone features and only offer a paid alternative.

The FoneFunShop’s debranding service  gives an insight into the problem. For example, Vodafone Live debranding allows menus to be browsed 20% faster based on JBenchmark test. Battery Life is improved with shorter time to standby mode. You can play MP3 files without any restriction and also play them as ringtones. Now why might Vodafone not want you to use your own MP3s as ringtones? I am sure there are more creative ways Vodafone could engage the customer to spend more money.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Mobile, Network Operators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.