Mobile User Experience Research at Mobile Muse: Findings

In our little ethnography-damaged corner of Mobile Muse, we have been busy interpreting field trials that took place in November 2006. We conducted a study (sponsored by Nokia) consisting of 3 groups of 8-10 participants followed through their acquisition, exploration, and use of an advanced mobile multimedia device (in this case, the Nokia N80) for discovery, sharing, and consumption of rich media as part of a group tour of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale (using the Metrocode application). An additional 2 groups of participants followed the same procedure using their own mobile phones. Techno-Experiential Design Assessment [TEDA] (see this link for a thorough exegesis) was used in the design and analysis stages of the project. Based on the data collected, we conceptualize the most important mobile web opportunities (also obstacles) as related to three anxieties North American mobile phone users have about the mobile web (excerpted directly from our report):

Participants associated their mobile phone use with anxiety over security issues. Being alone in unfamiliar surroundings, being on the road alone, stalking, and other situations concerning security were brought up by (mainly) females in the focus groups. Related concerns about conducting financial transactions, and the security and privacy of user data were also invoked. This dual anxiety - phone as lifeline versus phone as personal data leak - needs to be resolved and balanced in the design of any mobile application or device involving the transmission of personal information, or that utilizes social media.

Participants also expressed an anxiety over management of contacts in an “always on” mobile space. The ability to escape or prevent contact from unwanted callers through mobile phones is another site of anxiety that requires consideration when creating social applications for mobile networks. Users want to control who sees that they are “online”, and desire applications that can manage friends, family, work and school, and strangers in complex and flexible ways.

Participants associate “urgency” and immediacy with their mobiles – not viewing their mobile as much of a relaxation tool at all. This would seem to explain their resistance to the idea of mobiles as replacements for technologies currently adapted to user relaxation (computers, television). Still, this should be viewed as an opportunity – in which the urgency of staying up to the minute with contacts is to be resolved with the sense of relaxation and conviviality, which are so important to encouraging media consumption and sharing.

I will be posting more details and commentary over the next several weeks or so (hopefully you'll have some questions about the study that might help get a conversation about these issues rolling on this site), but these three findings constitute the core of our analysis. As I post this it's 5:45 PM on Friday, which means you're probably reading this at 10:30 AM on Monday. I'll check in with you then.