Jan Chipchase wrote about MotoFone recently:
“The Motofone is being marketed as a device that amongst other things aspires to “help bridge literacy gaps” including voice prompts to “guide the user quickly and easily through menu navigation, messaging and other functions”. It’s good to see illiteracy raised to the point where it becomes a marketing feature but I’m also highly aware of the non-trivial challenges that need to be overcome if they are to genuinely meet their stated aims.”
The two key questions Jan raises are:
- How do voice prompts help deal with complex functionality?
- Is the voice interface in the language most useful to illiterate phone users?
I’ve been very closely involved with the design of MotoFone project, and can respond positively to these two questions. First, functionality is only complex when it’s made to be complex (focus on core functions only and a lot of these problems go away). Second, there’s been a concerted effort to make sure the MotoFone speaks the customers’ language.
Jan’s correct in claiming that this is a non-trivial task, and I’m sure that with MotoFone we’ve at least overcome some of the challenges that will help make it easier for the unconnected to join the mobile fray.
Link: Literacy, Communication, Design II (janchipchase.com)
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