I arrived at 8:45am, 15 minutes before class and saw that no one was there. Went for a casual walk and came back and then realized a presentation was being setup about mobile applications. A Mr. James Eberhardt was ready to give his spiel on mobile devices and how great they are. SMS and thumbing the device were at the forefront of his presentation because let’s face it how else are people supposed to interact with the small gadget. This made me think about usability and how it applies to taking control of what information is sent or received. Strangely enough I thought of good old Jakob Nielson, the Flash bashing writer who now works for Adobe, I think, to help improve overall usability and dug up this nice tidbit on the “Sidekick”, another PDA but much older. Most mobile users rely on a 5-way navigation system and how it substitutes the traditional mouse when compared to the desktop. That being said if cellular devices are on the verge of becoming more like computers or media centers than this article entitled “Personalizing the Mobile Phone: Easier Said Than Done” would be fitting for users who tried downloading and navigating towards the content that they want and failed.
After listening to James and doing my own research on how well the mobile market is doing and what obstacles it has yet to overcome I wanted to know what the future was for mobile and sure enough the word “multimedia” popped up and I was off reading this article from Business week.
It might have not told me anything new but at least I can be confident that designing for mobile does seem like an alternative job path for a “Interactive Multimedia” student.
