Recent Blog Posts

We’re shutting down until the new year, so there are no more posts here. Okay, we’re furiously finishing work for a client and are playing with a few things, but most folks have better things to do over the holidays than read work-related posts. So go do those better things and stop reading this!

Happy holidays everybody. May 2009 be a better year.

We might even need to be able to open it up for Christmas!

See a bigger photo to see where our new office is. No, we’re not a “computer software company.” It’s hard to get people to understand the difference.

When it’s all pretty, we’ll post more photos, and invite you all over to see it and say “hi.”

If you want to follow me, I’m barbaraballard on Twitter (and Delicious). Design For Mobile has its own hash tag, and you can add your own tweets at http://hashtags.org/tag/des4mo.

In a post today about application signing, Mike Rowehl said in passing:

I don’t call Comcast when a virus screws up my PC

To which I immediately thought, "I didn't buy my computer from Time Warner Cable, either." And it doesn't have their logo silkscreened on the front.

Operators, especially in the US, like to complain that customers call them too much or about what they perceive as things that are not their problem. They'd like to go to the desktop computer model, which as far as I know is the "you better have a smart friend" model, and in practice drives sales of wintel boxes cause a new computer is easier than than fixing one. To this effect, they even try to make app developers foot the cost, and penalize them for customer care calls to the operator.

The model the operators have propagated of selling devices with their brand, from their store, and doing whatever they can to assure they operate on their own networks only, brought this on. For that matter, the software and internet experience is similarly branded and/or constrained to the operator network.

And all these operators are shocked and amazed (and annoyed) when customers call them to complain about service, or don't understand where the device ends and the network starts. Or where the network ends and some application starts.

Years ago, when I started at a non-GSM carrier, I rather liked the closed-ecosystem model from a new-user and support perspective. Without a mobile internet, I certainly didn't care how open it was at first. Sure it has issues now, but the biggest seems to be the operators' misunderstanding of what caused the issue, and therefore how to get out of it.

Today I was excited I got my replacement Blackberry 8320. As I was fumbling through the Setup Wizard, I got stuck at the Application Permissions screen because of the confusing terminology. It reads, “Set the default access control settings for third party applications.” Huh? I don't understand. It wanted me to check one of the options below:

What does this mean? Luckily Barbara was sitting right next to me as I was going through the process. She explained that this screen is asking if you want the application to ask you questions before you run it, followed by the option to deny or approve.

Pretty much saying, "Hey, are you sure you want to access the Internet?" "Are you sure you want to access Gmail?"

No, I do not want these annoying questions asked every time I click to open an application so I chose "Permissive Access."

Anyway, my point is: make the terminology as easy to understand as possible. Not everyone has a mobile internet expert sitting right next to them. And then they will fail to use your service even when they try.

We’re putting together the program for Design For Mobile 2009, and we want to know what you want. In general, I ask speakers to be sure to teach me something: we don’t want “intro to mobile design” fifteen times.

1. What topic do you really want to see covered at the conference? By what type of expert?


2. Who do you think would be a great expert? May we have an introduction please?

We are especially looking for fascinating academic research, speakers from inside Asian markets, and good speakers outside the current conference circuit. Please add suggestions in the comments, or email me directly.