At Reboot, it was a pleasure to meet Timo Arnall. We had a short 'I've been reading your blog' conversation: like Marko Ahtisaari's blog, Timo's blog and del.icio.us links are important in shaping and stimulating my views about mobile devices, their design and implementation.
Via Timo (del.icio.us), this from Marek Pawlowski posting at MEX - the strategy forum for mobile user experience, discussing m-spatial's report for the last quarter ('The Mobile Local Search Index is a new quarterly report from m-spatial that tracks consumer usage of mobile local search services in the UK, highlighting the diverse and often quirky demands of mobile users. The Index is based on detailed local information searches being conducted on everything from demolition services and local battlefields to flying schools and political parties'):
On a macro-scale, mobile devices are becoming increasingly influential on their surroundings - whether it is a teenager walking down the street playing music from the speaker on their phone (has anyone else noticed how many people are doing this?) or a user scanning a screen-based barcode to gain access to a turnstyle (recently trialled by O2 at Twickenham Rugby stadium) - handsets are becoming remote controls for the real world.
… users are even more ‘mission-based’ in the mobile environment than I first suspected. They are using their handsets to accomplish very specific objectives - in this case, finding a particular brand with which they have an existing affinity. This is in contrast to the more generalised ’search, explore and browse’ model employed in the desktop environment.
… mobile services should be designed to help users achieve the objective they’ve already specified rather than lead them off at a tangent. This is the key difference between mobile and other mediums : advertising on the desktop, TV and radio is based around distracting and generating interest among users; mobile services should be invisible channels which help the user accomplish their mission.
The title of Marek Pawlowski's posting? 'Mobile users don’t search, they locate'.
Technorati tags: Timo Arnall, mobile, desktop
