UX and Mobile

[Elizabeth Randolph]

Started this thread to gather specific suggestions, questions, contacts & contributors for a possible November Parlay event on User Experience and Mobile. What do mobile devices/platforms offer to, and demand from, us as user experience practitioners? What do mobile software/hardware/system developer have to gain from user experience research and design? Jim J says it's the Wild West, the next bubble -- so let's take a look and get a piece of the action.

[Lesley Humphreys]

I'm interested in augmented reality as part of the mobile UX -- has anyone ever seen any deliverables for this? How would we document? Does anyone document any more? :) Local mobile developers I know of: SmartLogic, MindGrub.

[Jim Jarrett]

Some mobile UX resources to pull ideas from:

http://www.smallsurfaces.com/ "Small Surfaces is a site about design for mobile technology. This site tracks articles about interaction design, user interface design, user experience, usability and social trends related to mobile devices."

http://www.lukew.com/ff/ "Publications on the critical details and big picture behind digital product design. LukeW's eight years of writing cover Web and device strategy, interaction design, visual design, usability, and much more." [And lots of mobile statistics and design information.]

http://www.impetus.com/featured_webinar?eventid=22 "Deploying the mobile maturity model while designing a mobile solution assists in describing the critical solution expectations during the pre development phase, enables user friendly design and faster time to market."

http://johnnyholland.org/2010/05/17/archetypes-and-their-use-in-mob... "In light of recent events in the mobile realm, I believe that the stage is set to probe notions of archetypes in the mobile space."

http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/ui-guidelines-mobile-tablet-design "Official user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) guidelines from the manufacturers, links to which you can find below, are a source of inspiration for mobile web and app design. "

[Jim Jarrett]

One active area of interest for me is the designing experiences that work well/scale across form-factors: phone (portrait and landscape, with gestures, VGA-ish - or less - resolution, full-screen), tablet/pad (portrait and landscape, with gestures, 720p-ish resolution, full-screen), web-app (portrait only, no gestures, 1080p-ish resolution, windowed).

How do navigation models have to change as you move across these form-factors? What interaction complexity can each form support usably? How do you translate for the different conventions in app 'chrome', layout (fixed/liquid, portrait/landscape), typography, copy, etc?

What are the opportunities for the same app across these forms to interact/share/augment each other? E.g. the phone as a remote control for the app on the 'big screen'.

[Jim Jarrett]

A nice article on wireframing for mobile or web apps, including links to LOTS of templates and tools:
http://nestordave.com/2010/11/01/ultimate-guide-to-website-wirefram...

[Jim Jarrett]

More mobile design templates:
http://www.mobilelove.org/category/design/design-templates/
http://www.littlespringsdesign.com/blog/2010/Jun/free-mobile-templa...
http://unify.eightshapes.com/

[Melissa Carraway]

What a wonderful presentation! I very much enjoyed it. Thank you so much for organizing :).