Little Springs Design is a mobile product, research, design, and usability testing consultancy. We help wireless operators, associations, manufacturers, and application & website providers with product and UI design, patterns, training, research and strategy.
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Mobile application providers have to deal with carrier requirements, off-deck distribution challenges, and over a thousand different potential target devices, each with their own features, platforms, and rendering differences. Porting costs are high. The mobile environment is different and more challenging than the desktop environment.
Application providers know that the user experience is more than just a pretty user interface.
The platform, architecture, data structure, and coding practices all affect application responsiveness, user flow, data security, available features, data location, and so on. Then there is handling the myriad devices. Which devices should be supported? What development strategy is best?
Little Springs Design understands the mobile environment, whether you are targeting a specific platform or attempting to deliver applications to all so-called "feature phones". Platforms include, but are not limited to Windows Mobile, Palm, Java ME, BREW, SMS, MMS, Series 60, uiOne, and UIQ.
You've got a product idea. You've seen an opportunity. You've got a vision. But wait! Now is the time to either validate your opinions or rethink them. Product strategy is driven by your vision, our deep knowledge of mobile users, and user models.
Product strategy includes identifying features, selecting the proper technology to best serve user needs, content process, pricing, and distribution.
This is where products start to come to life: blueprints, page renderings, and information architecture that communicate to the management team what the product really is. Behind the scenes, we design user interaction. How will users accomplish key goals? How will they understand application organization? Where will key features reside? What information sources are needed? How will advertising be supported? What is the best device rendering strategy? How will security be handled? We answer these questions and more.
Deliverables include screen flows, content strategy, device rendering strategy, wireframes, visual language, sample icons, and key screens.
Once the conceptual design is complete, accepted by the project sponsor, and verified as achievable by the developers, the detailed work begins. Now each screen is considered and every flow is specified. All edge cases are handled. Device rendering differences are addressed. The result is a user interface specification document, usable for coding and testing.
Emulator or device, laboratory or field, formal or informal: testing your device, application, or service with users enables better design and development decisions. Early testing facilitates iterative design; late testing enables benchmarking. We can help.
