dotmobi Screws The Little Guy!

The dotmobi camp today released General Registration of dotmobi domains amidst a flurry of excitement spurred on by the Landrush Press Event. Exciting times. The promise of increased adoption of mobile terminals as wireless internet browsers, a plethora of mobile internet content options designed specifically for handheld devices, and a couple million net new eyeballs waiting to take a gander at site owners content. Sounds like a positive business proposition ... until you look deeper.

Look under the covers and you will see the desire to build mindshare for a new domain suffix, inequitable domain registration prices, and a flawed underlying premise.

YOU DON'T NEED A .MOBI SUFFIX TO MEET THE NEEDS OF MOBILE USERS!!!

Instead, you need to design for multiples. Design for both desktop and mobile users by employing a CSS-based site with a style sheet defined for mobile handsets, or a hack where you identify browser type by its header and point visitors to a /mobile page that has all your content in simply HTML.

All the dotmobi initiative does in the end is provide a false sense of meeting mobile users needs force domain owners, many of whom which can't afford additional costs without associated revenue potential, to register for a more expensive domain to protect their assets.

Well, there is good that will come of this 'shylock' initiative. At least people are talking about focusing on the web experience of mobile users, and at least squatters are provided with a brand new set of domains to hold hostage.

Brand & Usability

The majority of usability, marketing and brand professionals are well aware of the power that user experience has on a brand. The physical and virtual elements with which your customers use to interact with your brand, and the quality of that interaction, can affect a brand positively or negatively. From Skype's desktop interface to Starbuck drink names, these instances of interaction can impact a brands ability to affect buying behavior ... otherwise known as brand equity. This "experience:brand equity" relationship is known within UX and Marketing disciplines to varying degrees.

What if we were to look at this relationship in reverse? Does the power of a brand affect product usability? If brand equity is the ability to influence user/buyer behavior, and if usability is a measure of the degree to which users can achieve a specific task or objective, then it stands to reason that a brand can indeed affect usability.

Here are a few anecdotal tests of this theory:

• Apple Products - Some of the brand associations created and furthered by our friends at Apple definitely affect product usability. Associations of "easy-to-use", "integrated solution", "cool", "creative", "counter-culture" and "different" will definitely shape how a user subjectively perceives and rates the usefulness and effectiveness of Apple products. By creating and fostering these associations, Apple has in fact created a dynamic whereby users are almost peer pressured into thinking Apple products are in fact highly usable. If a user didn't see these products as usable, then they may not be able to identify themselves with the Apple brand identity. Instead, they wouldn't cool, sexy or different. If they were, then they would adopt the mob mentality and 'get it'. (Note - I use both Mac and PC products)
  

• GAP Jeans - How many times have you seen a friend/colleague/family member proudly wearing $50 jeans from the GAP that do not fit? Why would someone do that? Well, they very well might have seen the GAP ads positioning the GAP brand as sexy, young, hip and too-cool-to-care. They might have also heard a sales associate mention there is a GAP jean for every body type. The message being sent, and the reason your friend seems to be perpetually sucking in their belly to reduce the pain caused by their jeans, is the apparent power of the GAP brand (read: brand equity), its messaging and positioning have combined to make a very powerful set of lenses through which consumers view GAP products. If there is a jean for every body type, and if GAP is sexy/young/hip/too-cool-to-care, then consumers MUST be able to find a jean that fits if they want to be 'somebody' and self-identify with GAP brand associations. (Note - I do not own GAP jeans as they really aren't made for people with booty and legs bigger than those of really long distance runner.)
  

OK. Granted, these are just 2 examples that suffer from a lack of supporting qualitative or quantitative research. The logic is solid though. A product/company brand can indeed affect product usability, even if only its initial or perceived usability.

I wonder if this explains why I REALLY like Nonfat Grande Tazo Chai lattes ...

Moto Q #2 - Perceived vs. Realized Usability

As per my previous post, I am keeping a pseudo diary of my pre and post usage experiences with the Moto Q to investigate my initial perceived view of the device in relation to its realized usability. My hope is that we can gain an understanding, regardless of how anecdotal it may be, of the value of our initial impressions of product usability and capability against the ability to actually use the product to complete the tasks for which I bought the device.

OK. So my initial impressions have been very positive. The device is sleek, sexy, feels substantial to the touch while still being light ... which is a hard balance to achieve.

Task #1 - Turn the device on and setup my basic preferences (language, location, time, etc.).

The image you see below is my initial attempts to turn on the device. After looking for an "on" button or one that approximates a button with an image I would associate with "on", the device become permanently locked on the screen below that says "Booting the OS ... enable sticky lock success". I've done a hard reset on the device 4 times and still get the same "black screen of death".



So far, my initial positive experiences have taken a drastic turn for the worst as I now have to call Motorola Support or worse ... read a bloody manual!!

Stay tuned for more as I try to work through the issues so I can actually complete Task #1.

Perceived vs. Realized Usability

In this post, we use a real-world example to test the theory that perceived product capabilities and usability differ before and after product purchase. In our example, we look at the new Motorola Q smartphone from Verizon. It's a sexy new smartphone that Motorola hopes will engage business/prosumer just like the Razr product engaged mass consumers.

Here are some pics of the device fresh out of the box, before I even try to turn it on.



Sexy, right?



Sleek and thin ..



So far so good.

Trying to be as objective as I can, I'm excited about this product. It has a QWERTY, it's thin, it handles wireless web + email. My first impressions are that it is sexy. Sure, it runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and isn't going to be 100% error-free ... and it's the first rev of a Motorola device which isn't always a good idea ... but it hits my sweet spot in terms of lots of power for little money.

In my next series of postings, I'll go through a set of tasks based on my normal usage behavior and dedicate a post to each task. My theory is that my perceived usability will differ before and after use.

Stay tuned for more ... it should be interesting.

Workflows Gone Wild

The emergence of the Internet has enabled many traditional processes to evolve into web-based workflows that promise consumers quick and easy access. With the good intentions of designers and corporations, and acceptance by consumers, there still seems to be so many workflow applications that cause errors and fall short on this initial consumer promise.

Today we look at a scenario where this "workflows gone wild" seems to hold true. Let's take a look at a real, and recent, scenario where I was trying to price a new Toyota RAV4 (pretty nice redesign BTW). All I wanted to do is check out the newly redesigned '07 RAV SUV and see how much it would cost for the least expensive configuration that had body-colored door handles. It would be even better if I could stay with a manual transmission, get some power options and some cold A/C for the warm Canadian climate (read: really cold).

As you can see in the screenshot above, I didn't get past Step 1 in this process before running into an issue.

As you can see in the screenshot below, there are a few things that just don't work:

• While I think I'm on Step 1, the Step 2 label is highlighted?!? I've got no idea why this is, except to draw my attention away from making my first selection. Result - decreased trust, increased frustration.

• After making my selection and being near the bottom of the page, we would expect to find a button or hyperlinked text marked "Next". No such luck. Result - decreased confidence.
  

• Only after looking around clueless for a minute or two, and after feeling as though I'm the biggest idiot on the planet, did I realize I had to go back to the top nav to select the next step of the process. Result - task failure, exit site before gathering info and/or purchasing.
  

So what went wrong? I came to price the car, and instead I've left the site in utter disgust. I left this site because the expected effort and frustration I would need to endure to continue in this process outweighs the perceived benefit yield of receiving this info. Put simply, continuing through this process past Step 1 seemed liked too much of a hassle for me to endure today.

Folks a Toyota, listen up:

1. The new RAV4 looks really nice and now seems less likely to break under the strain of my snowboard + gear + cooler + 12-year old son + his gear.
   
2. Please, please, please invest some time in formative tests to understand the mental model of your target audience and how we expect to maneuver through your process.
   
3. If you can't get management to approve some simple usability tests, then please, please, please just take a look at the top 10 online auto sites to see how they design this "build" process and learn from their successes.
   

Too bad though. It really does look like a nice SUV.

Introducing Urban Usability

Welcome to the new blog that looks at the devices, software and ordinary things people use everyday from the perspective of usability. Part rant, part study, I'm sure each post will be an interesting read in the least.