Peter Odum has written about design principles for converged devices. Here’s a summary of the principles he outlines:
Our devices are an ecosystem.
Design for reasonable consistency.
For users, content drives convergence.
Intelligent discovery encourages adoption.
Don’t burden users with content formats, formatting and packaging of content.
Context, not just content, is king.
Redundancy is useful.
Link: Convergent Experiences, Diverse Devices [...]
I just stumbled across the great Sender11 blog, which publishes articles about design for mobile devices. Here are some interesting provocations that were published recently:
Myth: The future of mobile is the Web
Myth: Converged devices
Myth: Your users are nomadic
Myth: The youth is leading the way
Link: Mobile Myths (sender11.typepad.com)
Here are the headline predictions:
1. The big squeeze, operators cosying up and a push on data
2. Device convergence—the rise of the multimedia handset
3. Mobile 2.0—user-generated content, social networking, location-based services
4. Femtocells—a cost-cutting, data services driver—or not?
5. Disruption—not just the Google factor
Link: Five Mobile Trends for 2008 (businessweek.com, via)
Apple finally got their phone. I had two immediate reactions. It’s fantastic that a company has released a touch-screen phone that’s hitting the mass market. I hope this is a wake up call to other manufacturers: touch-screen devices are not just for the high end PDA market. Second, I’m very interested to experience text entry [...]
Tasos Calantzis writes about small devices with big, enveloping screens.
“Instead of BenQ’s mobile phone-type idea, what we’re looking at, folks, is the next generation of mobile device. The one that will change literally everything for quite a lot of people. Every tech editor and gadget fan has been preoccupied for the last year with products [...]
“If you are old fashioned enough to call these devices “phones,” Nokia people will politely correct you. They are multimedia computers, which offer features and picture quality to rival digital cameras or camcorders, and music quality to challenge an iPod. And because they can connect to the Internet you can check e-mail, download songs, or [...]
A review of the book Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing.
“McCullough introduces a set of typologies for pervasive computing products. Types are “generative design abstractions”, which “unite periphery, passivity, phenomenology, adaptability, affordance, facility, appropriateness, and scale.” Although that sounds overwhelming, consider a simple urban architectural type: the sidewalk cafe, which probably suggests to [...]
“The problem which PDAs will still face, even once they follow this trend and become cheaper and more simple, is that people are not going to want to carry multiple devices with them. Despite what the Z22 has to offer, many consumer will opt to use another product, despite it being a good deal more [...]
Podcast of a discussion panel from SXSW ‘06.
“A library of music that might have once filled an entire room can now be stored on an MP3 player smaller than a deck of playing cards. New chip technologies and improved memory capabilities are enabling music players and a host of gadgets to decrease in size while [...]
A KPMG research report into the state of consumer behaviour and attitudes towards converged services.
“Asia is ground zero for converged services. Of the three regions covered in this survey, Asia emerged as the one with the greatest near-term opportunity for mobile service providers seeking to leverage a converged service strategy…This elevated state of awareness is [...]
Published by Gabriel White.