1. Technology driven: It is a great piece of technology and a step forward in terms of mobile. I love the touch screen, video quality, weight and build.

2. User friendly: It worked straight out of the box. All of it including Bluetooth, WI-Fi, calling, camera, browser, Google Maps, everything. This compares very favorably with the Nokia’s and LG’s of my past which all required configuration, unlocking from my network, upgrading of firmware etc.

3. Positive experience: The browser works very well particularly over Wi-Fi. Think of this as an excellent internet tablet. The browser is Safari and renders the whole page. To explore a page you scroll with your finger, tap to zoom in or squeeze with two fingers to zoom out. All very intuitive.

4. The predictive text works really well once you are used to it. Unlike T9 making a mistake is usually not a problem with Apple predicting the word from the words you have used in the past.

5. Mail and iChat (using an embedded Safari application) both work well.

6. It is a fantastic iPod with good battery life and the storage capacity of a Nano. Video is extremely watchable. I suspect that eventually it will be possible to buy an 32gb iTouch with similar capabilities as an iPhone but without the phone, would Apple will not risk confusing the market by having two products at the same level.

7. Web sites need to be redesigned for the iPhone. This is not because the iPhone cannot display normal web pages but because the experience of browsing on a small screen is so different.

8. The iPhone ups the importance of AJAX. Much of the interface for the phone is clearly built using components from Safari (just like the iTunes store). I particularly like the weather widget.

9. It would be breathtakingly expensive to use it in the UK while roaming on an AT&T contract. Therefore, it is not my primary phone right now. I will need to wait until the UK launch. The Wi-Fi option allows it to be a useful internet device and it would almost be worth buying a Wi-Fi contract for use across London.

10. Google Maps and YouTube both show how applications we know and love can be repurposed for this sized device. Google Maps in particular is excellent.

Compared to my blackberry, the iPhone is a million miles better, fun, stylish and still has the cutting edge finish that I bought a year ago. The iPhone still feels right when you hold it in the palm of your hand with pride. As times have changed and technology has quickly followed it has taken Apple 5 years to create the complete package when it comes to “communication in the palm of your hand”. Microsoft are a few steps behind.  I would choose my iPhone over anything else. Well not until the upgrade comes out in 2010.

The downside to this, however, can be reduced accessibility. Blind people use screen readers to navigate a web page by either by tabbing through the links one-by-one, or (if their screen reader provides the facility) by viewing a list of links either in the order that they appear on the page or alphabetically. Whichever method is used, if there are multiple ‘read more’ links on a page all linking to different web pages, it is impossible to know which one leads where. To work it out they will need to stop, backtrack, read the surrounding text, all of which can be a time-consuming and frustrating process.

If screen reader users are to read web pages quickly and efficiently they need to know from the link text alone where the link leads. This means giving the link a clear and meaningful description. However, with headlines sometimes being fairly lengthy, this could impact the usability for everyone else.

To get the right balance of usability and accessibility (something I strongly believe in) there is a solution. You can repeat the heading text after the ‘read more’ link but hide it off the screen using CSS positioning techniques. This way the scanability isn’t affected for sighted users and screen reader users have a clear and useful description of the links destination – everyone wins!

The image below show how links on our blog overview page are presented in a screen reader links list. Each link clearly describes the article users can read more about because our ‘read more’ link is followed by the article heading, e.g. ‘Read more about: Chance finds with online shopping’, instead of just ‘Read more’. The links list to the right shows how links are presented when no context is given, which isn’t very helpful.

Click on image below for a larger view.

                     Accessible links on Foviance website              Inaccessible links on other website

The result is so stunning and beautiful that I had to try it myself at home. I rearranged by books by colour (see image) and was surprised by the patterns that emerged. First of all, I noticed that the majority of books I owned were black or white. The book colours also seem to suggest the nature of the book’s content, e.g. the black titles ones were more male and action orientated (The Godfather by Puzo) whereas the white ones were more poetic (Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Murakami).

You may think that this makes findability impossible and you would be right. It takes about 5 minutes to find a specific book and I have to learn where they are positioned on the shelf. However, I now seem to find more interesting books to read than ever before. Previously, I would have skipped certain areas of the bookshelf because I knew where to find the book I was looking for. Now books that I may have overlooked or ignored keep popping up in the most unusual places and inspire me to read them. It has changed the usability of my bookcase.

I’m off now to get some more yellow books which I think is a great state of mind when looking for new reading material. 

A new look for organising your books

From a business perspective, customers are also less likely to come across something that they didn’t think they needed or wanted, but realise that they can’t live without when shopping online. On the high street, products are mixed in together so customers have to search for items and it is much easier to wander around a store casually looking at things. Supermarkets, too, frequently change the placement of products to maximise customers’ spend. These types of experiences can be difficult to replicate in online stores, where traditionally chance finds are not commonplace.

However, when buying other items, such as books or CDs, seeing and feeling them before you buy is not so important; but a fortuitous find could greatly improve a shopping experience. Amazon cleverly uses recommendations to help customers do this online. They work in two ways. First, recommendations on which products to buy are made to customers based on what other customers (who bought the same products as them) have bought. Second, Amazon recommends products that are similar to the ones that the customer has already bought. Although this sounds deceptively simple, Amazon were the first to adopt this approach to selling, and judging by their success, and its adoption by other online retailers, it works. This sort of practice is now becoming the norm and a high proportion of high street clothing retailers will now recommend a shirt or t-shirt that will go with the pair of jeans that you are looking at.

I came across another way of doing this the other day. The Book Depository website has long been a seller on Amazon, and in addition to the Amazon style approach to recommendations it also has a section that allows you to ‘Watch people shop‘. This novel and interesting tool, which combines the voyeurism of big brother with shopping, allows you to see what people are buying and where they are buying it from. Admittedly, this approach is not as user focussed as the Amazon paradigm, but it did succeed in keeping me engaged and on their site, so I guess it is working to some extent. And although when I recently bought something from the Book Depository it was not something that I spotted on the ‘Watch people shop’ option, I do think that this type of approach is a step forward towards engaging customers and shepherding them towards the products companies want them to buy. Even though the novelty of this approach may wane (like the soon to be axed big brother TV show), I think that ultimately these types of experiences will pay dividends in the long run.

In my mind, text messages hold a certain level of importance, more so than e-mails, because we always have our phones on us. Therefore, if someone sends a text, it must be important, right? I’ve read that mobile marketing is on the increase (British Gas have been texting customers for over a year now), but at what cost to our privacy and sanity?

Customer satisfaction is part of customer experience, and I’m not currently happy with my mobile phone provider because I feel they have invaded not only my Sunday (day of rest!) but my personal domain. Hearing about some ‘not so special’ specials on my mobile holds no importance for me. Is there any place of sanctuary left for us anymore?

I have since tried to figure out how to ‘opt out’ of receiving text notifications from my mobile phone provider, but unfortunately haven’t found any options on the customer service number, and their website links aren’t working right now - I’ll have to remember to try again later…

The core task of the testing required the participants to simulate a loan application process. They were asked to apply for a £25k loan in order to finance the purchase of a car. The feedback from the task revealed that the current process was found text-heavy, long-winded and of moderate length, whereas the new process was deemed more user-friendly, shorter and quicker. But surprisingly, more than half of the participants commented that they preferred the current process. The principal reason highlighted, was that going for a £25k loan was a big financial commitment that should slowly mature in the users’ mind, as they go along the application process. Participants did not expect/want to be able to take out a loan online as easily as they would pay bills or transfer money.

This shows that, even if some fundamental usability principles should always be respected, the best way to achieve a goal is not always the easiest.

Similarly in Panorama, website usability specialist, Claire Mitchell described Ryanair’s confusing website, and the lack of it explaining what questions you had to answer. Subsequently how you could end up buying something you hadn’t meant to.

Ryanair maintain that good customer experience is not “waiting on you hand and foot”, but rather ”getting you to your destination cheaply and on time”. Ultimately, I’d go back to Xavier’s point about our emotional attachment to a brand, the importance of good customer experience to a consumer, and not forgetting the importance of usability - online and offline.

Figures that ComScore released this summer highlight the increase in UK mobile Internet use: there has been a 26% increase in mobile Internet subscribers over the past year (they now make up one fifth of all UK mobile subscribers). This suggests that there are a lot of people who have been accessing mobile Internet for less than a year - and this trend is likely to continue with the announcement this week of both Orange and Vodafone both gaining the rights to sell the iPhone.

So it was with great interest that I recently observed a series of iPhone one-on-one evaluation sessions. It was captivating to observe the range of skill (or lack thereof) when surfing the Internet on an iPhone, especially for new mobile Internet browsers and new iPhone users. Just like in the early days of the Internet for PCs, navigation offered on websites viewed via mobile is not standardised. Nor are the mobile browsers that people are using to access the content. So this makes simple tasks such as moving back, moving forward and searching tricky for some.

In addition to loads of novice users, developers are faced with the difficult task of building mobile sites for multiple browsers, phone capabilities and screen widths. Clearly, the mobile Internet brings its own unique challenges that can only be solved with rigorous user research. But I am glad the UX community is rising to the challenge - and products like the App Sketchbook (if a bit gimmicky) will assist us usability professionals, designers and developers alike.

With 85,000 apps available from the Apple App Store, ultimately it will be the user-friendly and useful apps that become the most popular, and from the wisdom of the crowd, I hope we see some standardisation emerge - for the iPhone anyway!

Now I’m a practical chap and it occurs to me that there are certain aspects of post-Rapture life that are being overlooked. I realise that an eternity spent bathed in light and love and happiness and all that palaver might tend to make one forget that they left the oven on or didn’t pay the phone bill or neglected to water the house plants. But I’m guessing a lot of God lovers are also pet lovers. So when they ascend to Heavenly glory what happens to all their pets? Puppies and kittens, apparently, don’t have souls and therefore cannot ascend into Heaven.

Well thankfully, along comes Eternal Earthbound Pets (EEP) to save the (Judgement) day. EEP offer a service to rescue and care for the pets of all the Chosen who ascend into Heaven. Or as they so succinctly put it, “Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.” For $110 per pet rescue ($15 per additional pet) they will “save” your sinful four-legged friend should the Rapture occur within 10 years of the contract signing.

Taking our tongues out of our cheeks for just a moment, this site presents an interesting reverse of the usual customer experience. Virtually every commercial business goes out of its way to convince customers that it shares the same values as they do, whereas this site is making it clear in no uncertain terms that they do not share the same values as their potential customers; they state quite plainly that they do not believe in neither the Rapture, religion, God or God(s). But if you’re going to sell someone something you have to find some common ground, and the one point they emphasise which I imagine resonates with their customers is that they are good people who love pets. This is one of the key themes in the writings of Richard Dawkins, the Crazy Harry of atheism, that you don’t have to believe in God to be a good person…religion does not hold a monopoly on morality.

It may sound like a joke (and a number of Christians have taken offence to the idea that they, and their religion, are being mocked), but the site owners offer plentiful assurance that they are serious about this undertaking, although they clearly have a sense of humour:

Q: How do you ensure your representatives won’t be Raptured.
A: Actually, we don’t ensure it, they do. Each of our representatives has stated to us in writing that they are atheists, do not believe in God / Jesus, and that they have blasphemed in accordance with Mark 3:29*, negating any chance of salvation.

(*”But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin”)

A world full of atheists, puppies and kittens? Now THAT sounds like Heaven to me…

For example, it is the way that mobile operators make a profit off text messaging, and remember the Million Dollar Homepage? A student from Wiltshire sold a million pixels’ worth of 100-pixel blocks, which companies could purchase and advertise on at $1 per pixel. However, the deployment of this type of payment to general consumers within the online sphere is relatively new. At the moment, for example it is used on social networking sites to buy items such as virtual gifts or in games to buy extra levels.

In Asia, companies such as TenCent and Cyworld are bringing in large sums of money through nanopayments, which are paid for either online, through mobile bills, or the online currency is purchased for cash in shops. The limits to the use of this type of revenue model is not yet known, especially when placed in contest with the ad-supported model, but it has sparked an interesting debate. For instance, there has been a lot of discussion in the press about whether or not small payments could be used to help fund online news sites by charging for access to content. There have also been discussions about providing users with the choice over whether or not to pay for content, while educating them as to why they should. It is up for debate over whether users will pay for information in a format that has historically been free, or whether they would be likely to make what could be seen as donations to news sites.

As more and more people become interested in this technology and try to cash in on it, it will be interesting to find out what users will be willing to pay for and what they will not. This will depend on the perceived value of what they are being asked to pay for, no matter how small, and very importantly the usability of the method of payment.