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Assumptions About Connectivity
An assumption people often make when thinking about the future is that the wireless technology, whatever it is will have 100% coverage and will have 100% uptime - the seamless 24/7* connected user experience. The current experience is a good lesson in how things will play out. Today in the US one of the major purchasing decisions is the quality of the local cellular coverage - and whether carrier X has good coverage in your home, your route to work, the places you hang out. Signal strength meter watching and negotiating a space to find the best signal is for many part of the cell phone user experience. it's not just the US - the photo below is taken from an involuntary half day spent in the departure lounge of Kathmandu airport . Flights were grounded because the cloud cover at the destinations were too dense to land - a lot of time for people watching. Every time a further flight delay was announced a number of Nepali business men would take out their mobile phones and attempt to make calls. It would surprise me if they calling to inform someone of a new arrival time - given the relatively flexible approach to time keeping, but at the very least they were using the time waiting to get in touch. GSM coverage in Nepal is limited a minimalist version of the Cingular GSM coverage in the US for example.
The cellular coverage in the airport was good but the base-stations were overloaded with people trying to make calls - a common situation in Nepal. Your experience of making a call is probably something like:
1. Select contact
2. Press send call
3. Hold phone to ear and
4. When the person at the other end picks up, talk.
The experience for a Nepali mobile phone user is more like:
1. Check coverage
2. Select contact
3. Press send call
4. Keep looking at screen to check call status message to see if call is connected
5. When disconnected repeat steps 2 to 4. Eventually see that the call has been put through and
6. Put phone to ear, talk.
It's far from seamless but it works.
Sooner or later someone will provide cheaper, faster, richer, more convenient ways to connect so even if this issue is largely solved for cellular it will apply to whatever next the user decides to use. How to accurately inform users what services currently available on their device without them having to take out their phone and look at the signal strength icon(s)? What functionality is available when the device doesn't have connectivity? How to design the user experience to account for involuntary dis-connectivity and downtime?
* In the spirit of utopian connectivity perhaps 24/7 should be extended to 60/60/24/7/356 etc
Writing from Los Angeles | October 10, 2005 | Permalink
Comments
>How to accurately inform users what services
>currently available on their device without
>them having to take out their phone and look
>at the signal strength icon(s)?
Well, specific to the overloaded base problem you discuss, phones could certainly integrate an "auto-redial" feature:
1. Select contact
2. Press send call
3. Put phone back in pocket (or wherever)
4. Wait for phone to ring, notifying you that the call is being placed
5. Hold phone to ear and
6. When the person at the other end picks up, talk.
As for the more general question...I'm interested in the future of ambient information/notification, but there's an inherent difficulty with private devices creating ambience in public, because every sense except for touch (ok, and taste--not relevant here for the near future) is broadcast. Manufacturers long ago realized the silent-vibrate solution, but that is fairly one-dimensional.
My instinct here is that this type of solution--removing the overhead from the user--is more appropriate for mobile phones than active, constant notification. If a service is desired but not available, let the phone negotiate over resources instead of forcing the user to do it.
>What functionality is available when
>the device doesn't have connectivity?
Unless you're stranded in the wilderness, your phone will almost always have (potential) connectivity--with other phones! But although phone-to-phone functionality has *vast* potential, I'm sure the thought terrifies service providers. Nevertheless, this may be an upcoming battle between manufacturers and service providers (especially as the mobile phone markets reach saturation in many places and the manufacturers start looking for new ways to sell phones). But you're the insider, you probably have a better sense for that.
Posted by: Andrew at October 10, 2005 9:54 PM