All posts tagged as "Mobile web"

I finally got around to visiting USAA Mobile. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the company provides insurance, banking, and brokerage services to military families. (Thanks, Dad!)

I am thrilled with it. It provides text-only access to:

• View account history.
• Pay bills.
• Transfer funds.
• View transfer activity.
• View account balances.
• Place a trade.
• Check order status.
• Request an auto ID card.

They’ve made text-only access to the things that people need mobile. At the store and the credit card was declined? You can fix it! Need to send a payment to anybody? Pay bills lets you pay anybody already set up. Got in a traffic collision? Get your proof of insurance right away.

What I find so interesting is that bill payment is through a third party and their brokerage services are pretty separate from their insurance and bank services. The organizational work behind this is quite impressive. It worked fine on my old Blackberry and my Sanyo.

The home page is so simple, only 4 items for me and clearly not much for anybody, that they simply append the entire home menu to most screens. I can press 2 to pay bills anywhere in the site.

Over on the mobile design resources wiki, we’re adding some new content, as well as moving some of our older essays into the public space. Specifically, check out Design Tools. Right now there is only a list of web emulators & simulators and a full design suite; please add your favorite tools.

And since I haven’t ranted about this recently …

Simulators (which attempt to duplicate the experience of the device on the desktop) and emulators (which use the same code as what runs on the device recompiled for the desktop) are crucial tools in application development. They do a very good job of giving the developer an idea of how the application will feel to the user, and allow the developer to do unit testing. They’re also handy for demos.

Unfortunately, these tools must not be used as the exclusive means for testing the application for either functionality or usability. Do your unit testing, but then test on actual devices either in hand or via services such as DeviceAnywhere.

There are a variety of known differences between most simulators and the devices that they simulate. Usability testing using emulators, while less expensive than testing using real devices, is also fraught with problems:

• Normal device usage involves holding the device at a comfortable angle, and even gesturing with it. The unnatural use of a computer will cause your test to miss nuances in user interaction.


• The speed of transmission and rendering on the computer is faster than on the mobile device.


• Dropped calls and dropped packets do not happen as frequently on the computer.


• User input is different on the computer. Typing will be easier, unless you restrict the user to using the mouse (in which case it will be harder).


• User context is different. Sitting at a desktop computer is a fairly formal experience. Sitting on a sofa using a device is an informal experience. Users will behave differently.

The dotMobi Advisory Group is presenting what looks like a really useful free webinar for mobile designers and programmers. Check it out; I hope they capture the video file for later download.

Left to Your Own Devices
Building Device Aware Content – new tools to simplify the process and increase your business

A common pattern in any type of social networking, including mobile social networking, is to rate content or comments. Too bad it is frequently done poorly.

A star rating system must have the following components:

Other features are optional. #1 is usually done okay; #2 sometimes hides #1, even though its still valid data. #3 is frequently broken or hidden. #4 should be the simplest of all, but many of the biggest sites still break it, one way or the other.

We’re putting together a listing of mobile-optimized fonts, both vector and bitmap. We’ll publish it on the wiki, but would like your help!

Please comment with resources or links or info if you have especial experience with:

1. Font design for mobile screens


2. Mobile font selection criteria


3. Implementing fonts for mobile web sites


4. Implementing fonts for mobile applications (looks like BREW and MIDP3 have font managers and MIDP2 does not)


5. Mobile font rendering engines—especially how to use one if you are not a manufacturer!


6. Bitmap fonts

(yes, we’ve got the Punchcut/QUALCOMM case study)

While I’m not thrilled with the introduction of “yet another social network”, I do see social networking and mobile social networking continuing to grow. Just in different ways.

First, there is a growing number of companies providing single application access to multiple existing social networks such as Flickr, Facebook, AIM, and so forth. To a degree, Yahoo is doing this. Several startups, some of whom we have helped, are working to compete in this direction.

Expect the majority of them to fail, but some will get the user experience right. Success in this arena lies in connecting to enough relevant social networks, allowing cross-network movement of data and sharing, ease of use, and user-targeted advertising.

Second, mobile social networks are proliferating. I tried out MocoSpace pretty early on, meaning that I got a simple user name. About once a week now I get password reminders, suggesting that people are trying to use the application. Sorry, Barbara, whoever you are.

If you are building one of these applications, you’ll really need to think about your target market. I imagine in places with long train/bus commutes, you’ll do well. Otherwise, when are people going to spend time on social networking on the phone? In class? In meetings? In short, be sure you understand why you have a mobile focus and then design features accordingly. Do not copy MySpace or Facebook.

Third, there is the “everything is a community” applications. Have a movie site? Add ratings and commentary at a minimum; incorporate group chat and group coordination for people to go see the movie together. More advanced: track when a user is at a movie theater. When leaving the movie theater, detect other users leaving the same theater. Invite them to meet outside the theater to go talk about the movie with other movie goers.

I think that the “everything is a community” applications are where mobile gets really useful, either as mobile components of multiple-target applications or as exclusively mobile applications. Increasing interaction with your brand and your content is a good thing.

We’ve been “adding community” to appropriate mobile applications for a few years now. The nice thing these days is that our clients are more receptive to it.

Call it Mobile 2.0 if you insist, though I don’t recommend it.