User Experience
Many commentaries on User Experience recite what it’s like to use such and such a phone, application or service. In practice, the most challenging part is actually setup rather than typical use.
For instance, take my Sony Ericsson M600i. I recently received a T-Mobile Web ‘n’ Walk card (’unlimited’ data use) and Nokia 770 Internet tablet. I set about trying to get everything configured.
Here are some problems I encountered…
- Despite having the Sony Ericsson web-based configurator (WAP Setup) and a wizard in the Nokia 770 (GPRS setup), it wasn’t that clear how to set up access point for 3G/Internet. It turned out after some research that the GPRS settings are the same.
- Opera on the Nokia 770 doesn’t render some AJAX sites (e.g. Google Calendar). I ended up having to install and use Minimo (Mozilla).
- Opera on the M600i simply didn’t work. It took ages to start up. The keyboard input strangely entered each last but one character I typed and GMail wouldn’t render. Furthermore, POP SSL was flawed and I couldn’t connect. I ended up reflashing the phone with the latest version which fixed all these problems.
The average consumer simply wouldn’t have been able to diagnose and solve these problems. In fact, all of these problems were caused by things not being up-to-date…
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The Sony Web Configurator didn’t mention 3G/Internet
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The Nokia 770 wizard didn’t mention 3G/Internet
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I needed more software on my 770
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I needed the latest firmware on my M600i
So, if you are creating a new phone, application or service, think carefully how the user might automatically know how to obtain and apply new software. If you don’t do this, the majority of people will just give up.