Experience Matters

Designing For Mobility

Last night over 50 members of Chicago’s IxDA (Interaction Design Association) converged at our Chicago office to discuss “the mobile experience”—it was a great event. Folks from places like Motorola, Orbitz and Arc Worldwide showed up. If you look through many of our 2008 predictions here, mobility has emerged as a key theme. We’re not the only ones taking this seriously—see what Adaptive Path’s Dan Harrelson has to say about the leaps and bounds he witnessed in the mobile user interface at this year’s CES.

If you’re interested in what we discussed, you can watch a video of the discussion here. Our topics meandered through the following themes:

-If we design websites for a living, will we ultimately need to become mobile designers as well?
-Impact of mobile data within retail spaces (ability to comparison shop in context, ability for the retail space to adjust itself based on who I am, mobile device as barcode scanning device, as coupon delivery system)
-Impact of mobile on the youth of today (so much time for them to text today, what happens when they enter the workforce?)
-Ethics of design in the mobile space
-Impact of mobile experiences on memory and cognition

But for me—there was one insight which really drove it all home. One of the attendees brought up a study that HP had done several years ago in which researches followed the daily lives of mobile home owners. What they found was that these people lived very differently than the average home owner. They went place to place and quickly engaged in community activities meeting with other mobile owners. They embraced change and the context of their surroundings were in constant flux.

Years ago, I gave a presentation using the example of planning, architecting and designing a home as a metaphor to Web design. There are similarities. Before you can build a home, you need to think about location, make key decisions (basement or no basement?)—decide on the style of you home (Tudor? Colonial? Ranch?) and do things like interior and landscape design. Oh and of course when building it—all the plumbing and wiring needs to work.

But imagine designing for people who not only have homes but “mobile homes”. Part of the time their “staying put” and part of the time their highly mobile. Context changes rapidly—yet the still enjoy the amenities of having a “home”—it just happens to be “on the go”. Does this affect the way we design experiences? You bet it will.