Design projects like this require some expert knowledge and perspective to be considered. As a designer I believe you should be able to combine this with the user observation and research to find the solutions. As part of the research I am doing interviews with experts from different areas. I talked to computer engineers, mobile app developers, interaction designers, Industrial designers and experts in design democracy and ....

in Addition I spent time reviewing articles and listening to some speeches from people who have a point of view in this area. Mobile devices are so broad that you can find different opinions on how we need to design this new experience. Technologies are advancing so fast that it sometimes becomes hard to predict what is going to happen next.

I had the chance to sit and talk with an interaction designer who has been working on mobile experiences recently. The most interesting pint I learned form him are summed up here:

I see the mobile device not just as a phone, it is more like a device to access information.It could also be very overwhelming in terms of information. today the access to the information is not based on the "necessity"" it is more based on "want". It is interesting to see behavior changes when mobile devices were introduced. like how quickly people learn to communicate in the format of text messages after they become popular many years ago. Also to see how emails are formatted differently when sent form mobile devices compared to computers.

I believe that the users can fall into two categories: "broadcaster" and "receivers". Some users are using mobile devices to just receive the information they need some are actually using their mobile device more to capture and broadcast as much as they receive information. Mobile device is a very personal device that we make some kind of emotional connection with. For example compare iPhone with iPad. iPad is less of a personal device and the degree of trust would be different for these two devices.

I believe that most of the times we are overloaded with the amount of information we get on our small mobile devices. I find it more valuable for the users when the device facilitate more person to person interaction than voice interaction! How is that possible? that is a challenge for designers to figure out how to solve this!

I spoke to few people about how they envision mobile computing. Also went through some articles to find out what the future could be about. Here are some of the most interesting topics of future:

-Apps beyond mobile: Apps are becoming the new form of computing. Even today we see the new app store for Google Chrome.

-Digital indoor maps: Location based services will be extended to the indoors. This could be a big change in proving in services soon.

-Apps independent of the platform: developers will be able to develop one app for one platform and run it on any operating system.

-Digital interventions: people are becoming addicted to the digital media and would be looking for ways to take time off.

-Facebook alternatives: Social networking is gonna change and there would be services that will replace Facebook.

-F-commerce: Social networks are gonna be the new place for Electronic Commerce.

-Long-form content: Media will shrink to fit our attention span and more mobile devices will be used to access those media.

-Mobile Health apps: We are using more mobile applications and this will change how patients and physicians interact.

-Mobile blogging: blogging is happening more and more using mobile devices than computers

-Everything Hub, mobile devices: mobile devices are evolving into the primary platform for media consumption

-Near Field communication: Mobile phones will be our next digital wallets and tickets

-Qr scanning on mobile devices: Scanning barcodes would be a common task mobile devices need to be able to do.

-Cameras on Smartphones: Smartphone cameras will take over digital cameras as they get even more turbo-charged.

-Touchscreen for kids: more and more applications would be developed for kids and they will be first introduced to tablets before computers.

-Video calling: video calling will replace todays voice calls.

-Voice activated apps: Voice will play a more important role in interaction with mobile devices

It is always great to talk to people who

COMING SOON!

Mobile devices have tremendous potential to bring the power of computation and communication to a wider audience and to more aspects of our lives. However, there are new challenges for interaction design. Individual device use must be balanced with other activities and, in general, be appropriate in a wide variety of contexts. Interaction with the mobile is still a topic that needs more attention from designers. This is mainly because of the small size of mobile devices and the context they are supposed to be used.The best interaction with mobile devices is the one with minimal attention from the user. I got introduced to some great research done by Scott E. Hudson, Chris Harrison, Beverly L. Harrison, and Anthony LaMarca at Intel Labs and Carnegie Mellon University on "Whack Gestures". The idea of using a mobile device without “getting it out,” grasping, or even glancing at the device.

Interaction methods like Whack gestures (a set of gestures which are combinations of whack/ tap and wiggle/ shake) are very useful for simple and common tasks.The mentioned researchers use coarse physical actions as a mechanism for signaling mobile devices in an extremely lightweight fashion, one where users do not have to “take out the device,” use fine motor control or apply visual attention. Here is a link to their publication: Whack Gestures: Inexact and Inattentive

"I personally think that the interactions of a mobile device have reached a threshold. There is way too much interaction in a simple product like a phone". This is what I heard a lot from many experts. The way we are using technology in mobile devices is like we have to add things to a mobile device to make it look cooler. Even though the experience would not be necessary better.

"People should encouraged to interact with real world, real people, real places", this is one of the best comments I have had so far but my task as a designer is to figure out "how". This is one of the main area I would be considering in this project.

"The phone should just be about communications... whether its telephone, email, SMS, or something new". It is very interesting to think of phone as a Communication tool but be open to the new ways of communications. " The technologies of communication will always evolve, improve and change. But the fact that a phone is a phone should not be tampered, I feel ;or else, there will be no distinction between anything. Then you may as well design a car which is a phone, which is also a toilet and which is also your food, Its madness."

"People are inherently greedy... the more you give them, the more they want. Its the same with gadgets, the only phone I would be interested in is a self charging one... no electricity required, don't care if its touch screen or not". As a designer, it is nice to disconnect yourself from today gadgets and think from the beginning!

It is always tricky to predict the future, especially when it comes to fast growing topics like mobile devices. But it is best to listen to experts and learn from their views:

What we might have never thought of few years back was how mobile social media is becoming more and more popular. There are many interesting trends like these that could form the future of mobile devices. The number of smartphones users is increasing and there in no doubt that this is the future.

Near future? It is not that hard to see what could happen in the new future. We are going to use our phones for money transfers and payments. Location based services are becoming major service. Mobile search is already a hot topic and is gonna change the way we search. Companies will find more ways to use mobile devices for health monitoring. Near field communications will create a big shift in the way we design future services. Mobile phones will change our behavior, we are going towards an always there and always relevant expectations. Being mobile would be less about the technology and more about the culture!

Future user interfaces? User interfaces of the future would be easier to use. Voice recognition, image recognition and audio visual indexing would be more used in the interface. Displays would come out of the mobile device screen and we will have more projected screens and user interfaces. We will move out of the 2D touch screen and there would be technologies like 3D spacial interfaces on top of the screen. Mobile crowd sourcing will go main stream!

I had a chat with an interaction designer about today's challenges in mobile design that comes here in the form of summary:

The number of mobile users has been increasing at a very fast pace. Today there are more mobile devices sold that babies born! Mobile devices are different from desktop devices in many ways. When designing for mobile devices it is good to consider that the screen size is limited, users attention might be distracted, users need the clarity even though the screen is small, navigation model is very different and text input is very painful for users. One mistake designers make is to forget about the fact that this device is mobile not miniature. Mobile device design should target users needs, the users that are actually on the go. It is about the content and context. Context is very important we need do mobilize content based on the context.

Where are we moving? "Touch is the new click", we have to accept that touch is becoming the main input method for mobile devices. Gestural interfaces are becoming bigger and bigger in mobile device design. It would be interesting to see how far this goes. Sensors are gonna be everywhere, I see this happening in the new future and that opens new opportunities for mobile design.

Mobile devices are on the way of becoming the computational platform of the world. We need to adopt a model in which the mobile devices are becoming the main computational devices. The introduction of smartphones has provided consumers with mobile computing capabilities and access to Internet services that were once limited to personal computers. This in addition to the cloud computing has created new opportunities to design unique experiences. The future is promising that our phones will open up, as the Internet already has. Crowd sourcing goes mainstream and sensors would be everywhere. Search would be done in a different way than it is today. Mobile devices make intelligent decisions with minimal user input. Moreover, mobile devices become more and more computer-like. Operating systems are becoming more social as they marry context awareness, the Internet and our social connections. The information broadcast and received by our mobile device will be critical in connecting people in new and more immediate ways. Similarly location context will provide new ways to connect the physical and digital world.I believe the current mobile experiences have not cached the imagination in quite the same way that design and technologies do.

There is not a day that you don't see a new phone is introduced to the market. What do they all have in common? they are all the same. Touch screens, better cameras, higher resolution displays,and .... What we dont see in the new mobile devices is innovation. It takes a long time to see that new game changing idea.but Why is that? I talked to a marketing specialist about this and she has interesting points that summarized here.

The number of mobile phones in use worldwide has reached five billion, boosted by soaring demand in emerging markets India and China.When we talk about mobile devices we need to consider a bigger eco system around it. Service providers developers and governments and .... All these factors influence the mobile device market. Innovation would be adopted by this system as long as it meets the requirements from all these players involved in the system. That is one of the reasons it is way harder to bring new ideas into phone market. Sometimes new ideas need big changes in the infrastructure and to make this happen you need the big players in the market to take the first step which could also be a risk for them.

Smartphone is an area which is ver profitable for different companies. It is not strange to see manufacturers make new models of phones everyday. This is just to keep that portion of the market and engage a wider range of costumers with their products and services. Mobile devoices are just tools to have more costumers and make more money for service providers.

The new market for smartphones would be developing counties. There is already a huge demand for new mobile technologies in societies that are becoming wealthier. Also the new ecosystems are arising like how to engage mobile devices in daily life. For example I see that soon home appliance manufacturers are going to actively enter the mobile device industry, same with cable TVs and ....

"Don't let the business side kill your creativity!""

Tablet and computers

COMING SOON!

Luke Wroblewski is indeed the number one expert I have found on Mobile experience design. He has great insights about mobile user experience and when it comes to the future trends I appreciate his opinions very much. You can check his website at http://www.lukew.com/ .Here comes some insights on future mobile UX:

- The future of mobile isn’t on the phone. It requires being aware of environments. People are more than an eyeball and a finger.

- Super mobile: with cloud computing your mobile device can become incredibly powerful.

- We have to move from training users to predicting them. Make devices respond to users instead of the reverse.

- We need to design for where users are. The reality is phones are mostly inappropriate devices in many contexts. Be aware of environment. There are massive blocks of time where phones are unsafe for people to use. In the future, most mobile devices won’t be phones.

- Tasks need to occur across multiple devices. The environment is as important as what’s on the display. Computers need to filter, process and deliver relevant content and feedback.

- Customer ecosystem –how do people spend their time? What are they interested in? When Brill started off as a designer, thinking about customers meant: color palette. Now it's understanding how/where they spend time.

- Mobile phone is not a computer.Computer: predictable environment, large screen, multi-tasking, keyboard & mouse for input. Mobile: highly variable context & environment, small screen & limited text input, UI takes up entire screen, hard to multi-task.

- Mobile UX presents you with new ways to allow people to interact with information. This means you can break free of old habits and what it means to “compute”. Be mindful of your own thinking –don’t be anchored to the past.

To get a true picture of the consumer, we need to understand their history, their needs and emotions. This will explain why they do what they do. This kind of studies require a bigger user groups and needs to be done across different age groups and cultures. Something out of the scope of this project. Digital life http://www.discoverdigitallife.com . Here is the digital life styles according to them:

- Influencers:Big mobile Internet user who want to have access everywhere and all of the time. Most of the time a passionate social networkers.

- Communicators: They just love talking and expressing themselves using all means of communication, phone calls, SMS, instant messaging or just emailing.

- Knowledge-seekers: They use the internet to gain knowledge, information and to educate themselves about the world

- Networkers: The internet is important for them to establish and maintain relationships.They have a busy life.

- Aspirers: Very new to the Internet and are accessing via mobile and internet cafes but mostly from home. Desperate to do more of everything.

- Functionals:Internet is a functional tool for them. They like emailing, checking the news, sport & weather but also online shopping. Not much of social networking. Worried about data privacy and security

A note on the reference: TNS is one of the world’s leading market research groups. They provide Industry Sector Insight, and Innovative Market Research Solutions, to many of the world’s leading companies. With over 60 years of market research heritage, the TNS Global group has built an unparalled reputation for innovation, service excellence, and industry expertise. www.tnsglobal.com

Money Money Money... is it all about money? but wait dose not great user experience attract more users and result in more money too? yeah but who are the players. They are not only the software designers. It is a bigger system that consists of carriers, hardware manufacturer, advertisers, financial investors and .... In order to succeed you need to work with them anyway! Says Jono who has been working as a product manager for a consumer electronic corporation.

We all know the story with Apple iPhone. Years ago, Apple launched the iconic iPhone whose mobile Safari did not support Adobe Flash. Nor does the present-day iPad. At first, Apple said it was because Flash was poorly written and drained precious battery life. Isn't the whole experience affected by this? and many similar stories from Microsoft, Google, RIM and ... I leave this to the users to judge but come on, all these corporations are defining the new experiences experience all based on the current marketing trends. I believe this is not necessary a bad thing. As long as it creates jobs and make the economy better. However you can achieve the same results and still provide users with a decent user experience.

Looking into the mobile devices today we realize that the richness of interaction is different from device to device and what is more interesting is that each device work best in a different situation. Basically that is the context that defines what users need and one level of interaction richness is not necessarily best for all the contexts and usage scenarios.

This has been a big design challenge to provide users with the right level of interaction capabilities each time they interact with an interface and a device. from what I have learned in my observations, users need almost all the richness and levels of interactions. The only thing is that each level works best in a specific context. I believe solving this problem is a key to this project and will be my main focus in the rest of the time I am working on this project.

The first thing I knew I should do after synthesizing the research result was to start ideations with the experts. I gathered a group of interaction deisgners with different background and did a very open brainstorming around three topics: - How can we redefine the communication on mobile devices
- How we can create one experience across multiple devices
- How can we layer the information on a mobile device so we have both rich and simple interface

The result of this brainstorming helped me group the topics that I needed for ideation and also became a start point for generating ideas. Basically what I did was to use a few smart brains that had interesting point of view on the topic and let me go ahead confidently. From here and based on the research finding I define the design values and see how each idea falls within a design value. Ideas help me define those values in terms of design meaning that the system is defined according to the main ideas that address the design values.