Sun 07.11.10 - Ever since I wrote my master's thesis on how Creative Professionals used their Mobile Phones, I remain very curious how folks are using their phones. The tech and mobile blogs and blogosphere very much reward bloggers for writing on either the newest/latest/greatest or on the most detailed, esoteric atomic bits about the latest and greatest, all the while most of the folks around us seem to be muddling along with the mobile or cell phone that they bought from their wireless carrier for cheap.

When folks in my daily life find out that I love to take photos with my mobile phone and then moblog them to this blog, I frequently find the person I am talking to puts themselves down, discounts their own technology skills and knowledge, then confesses that they don't know how to get the photos they take with their phone off the phone.

A year ago, I decided that it would be fun to start a video blog that would, magazine style, ask a wide variety of folks the same five questions about their phones, plus a few sub-questions are asked in each interview, plus whatever other bits folks want to talk about their mobile phones:

1) Who are you, what phone do you have, where did you get it, and do you have a data plan?
2) What do you like about your mobile / cell phone?
3) What have you taught yourself to do on your mobile?
4) What don't you like about your mobile?
5) Either What do you wish you knew how to do on your mobile or what do you wish your phone did differently?

This idea has evolved and as of this evening, I formally announce the launch of Mobilefor.Us: Cell Phones for the Rest of Us.

Mobilefor.Us will be an online space that will seek to inform, share, and disseminate knowledge and confidence in using one's mobile phone regardless if you have the free phone from your carrier with no data plan or if you have the latest & greatest mobile with unlimited data or somewhere in between.

Please come join us at Mobilefor.Us.

Forgive me for last night's storytelling rant/praise about Over the Air updating of one's mobile / smartphone. But one point that I would like to pick out from the story's threading is that of ease of use for the customer.

Many in the mobile and computer technology space complain about how users do not update their computers, mobiles or software thus making it more complex, difficult, and at times more expensive for creators, designers, and developers to provide great experiences (giving the the stink eye to IE6). But we can't complain if we are part of the problem in making updating difficult or more complex than it needs to be.

Apple has solved the problem of updating by making syncing between one's iPhone/iPod/iPad as close to automatic as possible when you dock or plug it into your computer. But it creates another problem in that one need's to have access to a computer to update or sync one's Apple mobile products and it can also create problems if you don't want a full sync or update. I have heard quite a few friends complain about both, either not having a regular computer or by syncing unique data on the mobile is wiped out by the sync. Apple makes it very easy but they have control over how the update happens.

Google's Android has solved the problem by making all their updates to any Android phone happen over the air. As I detailed out last night, Android puts a little notice up in the top tool bar that updates are available, the user can then click on the tool bar and a drop down menu will give one the alerts as to which software and/or firmware has updates available. Google makes updating very easy and gives the user the control on when and how much they want to update.

My complaint of the last four years about Nokia's Symbian S60 devices and updating is that the updating can only occur when one has the mobile phone attached by USB cable to a Windows PC/laptop. If one does not have access to a PC or one does not wish to find a PC to update one's mobile, then one goes without. Once one gets a PC of which to conduct the update on, it becomes a multiple step update process that usually includes updating the Nokia Updater software and then updating the phone. Most of the time this takes at least 3-5 times longer than an Apple or Android update. Unnecessary kit, steps, and time just to update.

What was so exciting to me and praiseworthy yesterday was that the Nokia N900 with the Maemo linux-based OS uses the Android model of OTA (Over the Air) updates. The user clicks on the alert in the top tool bar, one chooses the updates that one wants to have updated, and as long as one has data connection it will update. As stated last night, this whole process for a major firmware update took less than 10 minutes. It was truly efficient.

From the user experience perspective, we as creators, designers, and developers cannot assume what the user will have for 'kit' or a computer to update with and what access to connection they will have. Thus I suggest the following for updating of software and firmware on mobile phones and computers:

1) Let the device that needs to be updated be the only device involved. If a mobile, don't force the user to find a computer to conduct the update.

2) Make the available updates be readily noticeable to the user on the front or home screen of the device.

3) Allow whatever connection is most convenient for the user to do the updating. If wifi, then let the wifi do the job. If data connection through a mobile carrier, then let the sim chip do the job. Don't force it to be through the mobile carrier as some folks have very spotty 2G& 3G connections. Don't let the user fear that a spotty connection will brick the device. Conversely, if it doesn't work for the user to do the update only through a mobile connection, then give them steps to get around this.

4) Allow the user to choose how little or how much they want to update. If a major firmware update, then say so in plain language, not the internal language of your company or specialty.

By taking these four steps we can encourage users to update and make the update painless. Painless updates that just work make for a good user experience, excitement for new features or bug fixes, and in the end for brand affection and loyalty.

The ability to update one's mobile phone / device is an excellent service that a handset manufacturer or operating system can offer a customer as it not only extends the life of the mobile but it also expands and builds on the array of services and software available on the mobile.

One of the big enticements for me to consistently choose Nokia mobile phones over other manufacturers has been the high quality cameras, the great hardware, and the software/OS updates that are available for your mobile even a year or two after purchase.

Only one not so small, not so wee problem...

Up until the last year, all of the updates have only been available for Nokia customers with access to a PC / Microsoft Windows based computers, as one would have to use a Windows machine to update the Nokia in question.

Now, I don't know about you, but if you are a Nokia Nseries owner in the US, you are possibly not a PC owner. If you prefer to buy hard to find, high end, well designed hardware, then you have been mostly buying Apple for years and used to paying extra premium for great devices. If you are a Nokia Nseries owner in the US, you may be a creative surrounded by other creatives with Macs, not PCs. And on top of all of that, the PC owners around you might be the sort who don't own or ever run anti-virus and so you wouldn't want to hook your precious, expensive Noka up to their virii-addled PCs even for an update that will take 45 minutes to set up.

On top of hunting down a PC to update one's Nokia, there is the added irritation that every time one wants to update on a borrowed or ancient PC, the Nokia Updater software on the PC wants to be updated itself. And given that the lame computer in question is a Windows machine it means a lengthy download, a restart of the machine, plug your Nokia back in via USB cable and START ALL OVER AGAIN. SO ANNOYING.
Can I type it again? SO ANNOYING.

30-45 minutes to just get one f*ing update. UGH.

I have gotten some requests from a few web designers and developers on what are the best approaches for mobile forms.

My short & sweet answer is to keep it simple and make it flexible. Make sure your forms work with according to web standards best practices: clean code, strip out the extraneous that does not work towards the form's task or goal, and use progressive enhancement when coding the javascript if you use it at all. Resize the screen, are inputs too long or hidden? Test your form: if you turn off your javascript & CSS will the form inputs work? If so, then your forms will work on almost any device out there.

But you argue, "Jen, I am designing for smart phones with good webkit/gecko browsers, so I don't need to worry."

Yes, you do, as you can't guarantee on the mobile web what phone, be it smart or feature phone, what browser, and what screen size will come to visit your mobile or web site and may want to fill out a contact form or purchase something.

Here are some resources to get you started:

Luke W, the king of forms, on mobile forms:
Web Form Innovations on Mobile Devices
Better Mobile Form Design
Forms On Mobile Devices: Modern Solutions

Linda Bustos at Get Elastic on Mobile Commerce Usability: Forms and Checkout

Chris Mills in ThinkVitamin on Coding for the mobile web

WestCiv's Complete CSS Guide, The Mobile Profile

PPK's Mobile with links to his CSS & Javascript mobile tests

If you like the Details & Standards and a different point of view from Luke W, don't miss:
Luca Passini's Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web, under point 3.2 Usability Luca argues that one should Beware of HTML style forms and has a different approach to Managing User Input.

Finally, the W3C recommendation on Mobile User Input

Back in April, Cindy Li & I spoke at the UX Summit on Mobile UX (aka Mobile User Experience), a subject very near & dear to me. Cindy took the first bit of the slides and concentrated on her experience in mobile app design as well as mobile web, I took the second part of the slides and focused on the principles of Mobile UX and the concepts that we need to be thinking about as we start design a mobile app or mobile web site/app.

It was surprisingly fun to sit at Cindy's and have us both get to speak into her MacBook Pro and have the magic of Adobe Connect (or something like it) project our slides, our video and the chat area of the attendees from all over the world on one computer screen. By seeing the chat as we spoke, we were able to answer questions as they were asked or reasonably soon thereafter. Later on Twitter, we received quite a few thank yous.

Now in return, Cindy & I present to you all our slides on Mobile UX. Enjoy. And thank you!

Yes, I have a few blog posts about the Ethics of Leaks, the just announced delicious Nokia N8, and my thoughts on Resources for Developing Mobile Apps, but these three blog posts may have to wait for the weekend, as I have been a bit buried in work.

In the meantime, may I direct you to a few good | interesting links:

52 Weeks of UX on Simplicity isn't that Simple:

"John Maeda's First Law of Simplicity states: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. Refinement that is thoughtful, calculated, and whenever possible and appropriate, based on data is one of the fundamental tools of any designer."

Jan Chipchase, the master of many travels and more than a few international relocations gives some of his tried & true tips on 10 Tips for International Relocation, of which I find #8 to be my experience as it was darned difficult to get a bank account set up in Ireland when I lived there in 2005-2006:

"8. Maintain at least one bank account in the country you're leaving, because frankly its a bitch to open accounts when you're 'abroad' and at some point you. will. need. it. The exception to the its-a-bitch-to-open rule are the premium banking services offered by the larger banks geared up to service international clients - allowing you to set up an account prior to departure and pick up your new, local cards on arrival. (I use and am reasonably happy with HSBC Premier)"

And speaking of travel, the NY Times' Travel Section on Joys of the Window Seat, a visual feast of photos in a fun, but hard to scroll interface.

>

I left Tues 4.20.10 in the morning and returned Thurs 4.22.10 in the evening. It was a very quick turn around time trip from Seal Beach to San Francisco to co-present with Cindy Li on Mobile UX for the UX Web Summit. I enjoyed the Summit, I enjoyed presenting on one of my favorite topics: designing for the mobile web, I enjoyed co-presenting with Cindy, I enjoyed seeing various friends, and I enjoyed my drive home with my brother, who happened to be in SF at the same time for work.

Big Thanks to Cindy Li and the Matt Harris for hosting me and having me at their apartment!

Sun 04.18.10 - Just want to remind folks about the UX Web Summit that will be this upcoming Wed April 21, 2010, at a connected computer near you.

I will be departing for San Francisco on Tuesday morning so that Cindy Li and I will be able to conduct our session together at one computer rather than have a split screen.

If you are in San Francisco on Wed 04.21.10 and would like to get together for dinner and drinks, let me know, as it would be good to see folks, even if briefly.

Next Wed., April 21, 2010 is the UX Web Summit, of which anyone anywhere in the world with an internet connection can attend.

Our online Summits bring the experts to your desktop! Forget about the hassle of travel or leaving family so you can focus on diving deeper into Web design and development topics.

A great user experience (UX) can mean the difference between merely having a web presence and truly engaging your visitors so they'll gladly come back over and over again. Practical techniques to create the best UX are hard to come by, though.

Join some of the Web's most experienced UX professionals as they share experiences culled from working on sites big and small. Learn from the pros how to tackle user experience difficulties head-on with proven methods in use by some of the most popular sites on the Web.

Cindy Li, the fabulous designer and illustrator, and I will be speaking on Mobile User Experience Design, both from the perspective of native mobile apps and the mobile web. Cindy will be presenting on how to best approach the UX of iPhone app design and I will be tackling the UX of the mobile web. I am very excited to co-present with Cindy on this topic as both of us are passionate about User centered design and the mobile space.

More info on our session:

Mobile UX by Jenifer Hanen & Cindy Li Online

Mobile platform has become more and more important part of the web experience, but how do you design for it? Presented by Jennifer Hanen and Cindy Li, this session will cover resources for mobile design, what you need to get started, principles for mobile design, and prototyping your next mobile application.

Topics covered:

* Resources for templates in Fireworks and Photoshop
* Principles to consider when you are designing for mobile
* Keeping the essence of your traditional desktop web site
* Is it a mobile app or website?
* Designing for a mobile location-based mobile app
* Creating a test without coding
* What to send off to Apple to get your iPhone/iPad app approved

The UX Summit will also have sessions by Dan Rubin, Daniel Burka, Juliette Melton, Nick Finck, Donna Spencer, and Rob Goodlatte.

For a registration Discount, go to http://uxwebsummit.eventbrite.com/?discount=UXHANEN10 or use the discount code UXHANEN10 for 10% off!

"User Experience is a focus, a thread that runs through all of our disciplines, and which no discipline owns or controls." - @UXsters via ExplainUX

Between Thursday night and Friday morning of this past week The Atlantic launched a new website redesign and switched the comments on the various blogs from self-hosted to Disqus hosted comments.

My first shock upon my morning review of the website was the new colors: Red - White - & - Blue - UGH! I find red, white and blue to be very divisive and a cheap, cheap, cheap visual shot.

During the 2000s, the red and the blue of Red, White, & Blue were used to separate out Us Vs. Them. At that time, the Us was the Red and the Them was the Blue. Still is. I just hate that American politics has dissolved down into color. UGH.

What was the rotten, pus-y cherry on top of the political sundae was the summer of 2006 when I spent a good deal of time traveling around Northern Ireland, where the colors of Red, White, and Blue are used as a symbol of war and hate. Driving through towns that had painted red, white & blue curbs as well as flags and placards was beyond creepy.

Heaven forfend that the United States of America devolve into a Northern Ireland style division, warfare, and ideological hatred. But the continued use by a variety of media of the colors red-white-&-blue only furthers a cheap visual metaphor about supposed patriotism and political partisanship.

Why did the Atlantic Monthly, formerly one of the most intelligent news sources, decide to join the ranks of creepy and division? Could they not afford a graphic or brand designer who could explain the concept of visual literacy and metaphor to them?

I showed the Atlantic's site redesign to other web designers at Tuttle Club LA on Friday morning and they were as horrified as I was. One thought it looked like a conservative business website and the other went on a discussion about hosted comments and HTTP Request loads.

As my visual acuity was assaulted by the new color scheme, I went to Ta-Nehisi Coates' Altantic blog to read what others in his community of readers thought only to be confronted with the fact that the comment section had been switched over to Disqus hosted comments.

Disqus. My blood boiled at 212F and my blood pressure went sky high. I hate Disqus comments.

I don't really like hosted comments, but I understand why bloggers use them for ease of AJAXy goodness with ratings, liking, and threading. The big but is that Disqus login fails about 2 out of every 1 time(s) that I try to login and then a good portion of those failures also deletes my carefully crafted comment to the blog in question.

My problems with Disqus occur regardless of computer or browser. Yes, I have my third party cookies set to on. Yes, I have been in dialogue with Disqus' one man support team.

I have come to dread encountering a blog that uses Disqus, as it normally takes me 3 times as long to comment on a Disqus blog as a blog with a complicated self-hosted comment system, if Disqus lets me comment at all.

On one hand, I understand why a large site like The Atlantic would prefer to use Disqus, as it reduces the load on their database, but given the amount of readers on the site, Disqus is a bad idea for two main reasons: usability and privacy. When I went to comment on Ta-Nehisi's blog, it took 3 times of attempting to login before Disqus would post my comment and it took over 5 minutes for the 3rd login to commence and post the comment.

When my comment finally posted, it made the title to be "404 Error". Perfect. Yes, Disqus is one big 404 error waiting to happen on a website with as many users as The Atlantic's website due to the heavy load of HTTP Requests from theatlantic.com to the disqus.com's servers. Good thing Andrew Sullivan does not have comments on his blog or Disqus's servers would melt.

Beyond HTTP Requests and error messages, the more important part of the Disqus Fail is that Disqus publishes one's comments not just to the website that one has decided to comment on and participate in that community, but Disqus also creates an automatic page for ALL of one's comments on the Disqus website of which one cannot make private or switch off.

Go look at my Disqus Profile, of which I can't make private: http://www.disqus.com/msjen/

Yes, every comment I have ever made to a blog that uses Disqus' hosted comments is now available and search-able on the Disqus website out of context and without my permission. I have searched the Disqus site for a way to make my comments not publicly viewable on their site, but there is no way to turn off the comments from my profile page.

I don't mind the information that I placed into my Disqus profile to be viewable publicly, I do very much mind that Disqus makes all of my Disqus blog comments available to anyone to view.

This breaks the community of comments and the context of the comments to the blogs where they were originally posted.

To that end, I am a bit surprised that the web had a collective apoplexy last week about Google Buzz and the original lack of the ability to opt-out of a public display of one's Buzz's but no one has said a thing about how both Disqus and Intense Debate do not give the registered user the ability to make their comments private on the Disqus or Intense Debate websites. This lack of ability to opt-out is just as egregious as the first week of Google Buzz, as in all three cases the display of the comments/threads without permission and context breaks the original posting of the comment within the blog or media community that it was posted in.

Some folks may want all of their comments to be public beyond the blog they originally posted them on and search-able for that matter, but many of us may not. Disqus and Intense Debate, offer your users a profile privacy option.

For a magazine as web savvy and web successful as The Atlantic has been, this redesign is both a tired political branding trope in the color choice and a social media privacy bomb waiting to happen.

********

Update, Sun 02.28.10 10:30pm (PST): I am not the only one who doesn't like The Atlantic's redesign, Mr. Sullivan doesn't either for different reasons.

Wow. I am more than a bit stunned that the Atlantic would go ahead and do such a big visual and content management redesign without consulting the main bloggers/writers who create their content and draw in the readers who form the community of the site.

Now I am just sad. Sad as a faithful reader & subscriber of the Atlantic and sad for my profession of web design. In web design, we talk a lot about User Experience, but UX is just not the experience of the end user, but also of the authors, bloggers, and content creators of the websites in question as they are also our clients who we must design a good experience for.

Screenshot photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Wed 02.10.10 - In the last two weeks of trialing the Nokia Booklet 3G that WOM World/Nokia sent to me, I have had a range of great to ok to just bad experiences with the Booklet, but all of them have been predicated on the Operating System (OS) and not necessarily the Booklet itself. I am of the opinion that the Booklet is a great little mini-laptop that is beautifully designed but hampered with a crappy OS in Windows 7 Starter. It would be great if Nokia were to install an OS that had the same level of polish, attention, and design that the Booklet itself has.

Here are my thoughts after two weeks of testing, installing, uninstalling, and reinstalling alternative Linux based Operating Systems in the form of a Pro & Con comparison of the hardware, and the various potential OSs of Windows 7 Starter, Ubuntu, and Jolicloud:

Pros for the Nokia Booklet Hardware:
Beautiful hardware design
3G with a sim chip port in a netbook is excellent and frees one up to be able to work on a computer anywhere
Lovely screen
I like the chicklet style keyboard, even if a bit narrow
Truly long long long battery time: 10-12 hours. I have yet to run it all the way down.

Cons for the Nokia Booklet Hardware:
I don't like the touchpad, rough surface, works poorly in Win7

Overall: The Nokia Booklet 3G is a lovely, little mini-laptop. The only thing cuter is Jackie's pink Eee PC. The Booklet would be cuter than the Eee PC if it came in hot pink or deep purple.

****

Pros for Windows 7 Starter:
Native 1280x768 screen resolution

Cons for Windows 7 Starter:
Wow! Win7 Starter sucks.
AT&T Sim chip does not *just* work for the 3G side, Al and I had to add our own settings & it still didn't work. It finally did about 3 days later.
Multitouch on the touchpad does not work or works very badly and intermittently.
Win 7 on the Booklet is slow. Sometimes molasses in a blizzard slow. Unexceptably slow.
Can be quirky on start up and starts in Airplane Mode with wifi/3G turned off. Odd but true.
Windows 7 Starter does not let the user do a lot of normal tasks like change the background, so I had to download a specious 3rd party app to rid the desktop of the Win7 logo.

Overall: Windows 7 does NOT live up to the hype. While it may appear to be an improvement over XP or Vista, any OS is an improvement over those two, so it is not saying much. Windows 7 Starter is a bad little OS. Nokia's biggest mistake is not the 1 GB of RAM or Intel Atom chip speed on the Booklet, but the inclusion of Windows 7 Starter as the OS as the Windows Bloat slows down the hardware. If Nokia wants to be in bed and having relations with Windows (each to their own), then for the price of the Booklet, they should have Windows 7 Ultimate as the shipped OS, as it is more polished and for the $600 price unlocked the Booklet does deserve a polished OS.
Did I mention how damned slow Windows 7 Starter is to do any task? Ugh.

****

Pros for Ubuntu via Wubi:
Super fast install of Ubuntu via Wubi which uses bit torrent.
Wow! Ubuntu is much nicer than Win7 Starter! Can I say that again?!
AT&T sim chip 3 G data *just* works in Ubuntu after you answer 3 questions, no fiddling with properties & preferences.
Multitouch does work on the touchpad and it is *fast* (it worked on the first two times I installed Ubuntu through Wubi, but not the last two times)
Ubuntu is fast on the Booklet, none of the hesitating or slow loading of Win7.
Ubuntu comes shipped with over 25 applications that provide a wide range of office, graphics, web, and developer tools and programs, including Nokia's QT.

Cons For Ubuntu:
800x600 screen resolution. As of Jan 29, 2010, don't try the kernel mod fix to make the res 1280x768 as recommended on the Ubuntu wiki, it makes for a very unstable install, wait for the Ubuntu dev folks to make a stable fix.
Sometimes the multitouch works great, sometimes it runs too fast.

Overall: Ubuntu is my favorite OS for the Nokia Booklet 3G hands down and miles ahead of Windows 7. While at the time of writing this, I could not get the native screen resolution to work with the Ubuntu fix, the Jolicloud folks did, so the Ubuntu folk should not be far behind with a workable fix.
The best part of Ubuntu on the Nokia Booklet is that the OS has a light footprint which makes for a fast Booklet and even though light & fast, Ubuntu is powerful and comes with or one is able to download easily any and all developer tools to really work on the Booklet with Ubuntu. I can code and deploy Django, Google App Engine, and Nokia's QT with Ubuntu, which I would not be able to do fast or easily with Windows 7 Starter or Jolicloud on the Booklet.
I really do think that Nokia should do a co-promote with Ubuntu's Canonical and ship a version or a dual boot of Ubuntu customized / polished up for the Booklet, as it is provides much more programs and functionality than Windows. For all the naysayers that don't think Ubuntu is polished enough, if Nokia were to work with Canonical, much of the polish problems could be solved within a few weeks with a team of devs & designers on the project. The main points are to make sure the native screen resolution and multitouch always work, as well as the syncing with one's mobiles. If one really wants Windows, then provide a dual boot. Many folks would be happier with Ubuntu after 30 minutes of using it, not just a geek like me.

****

Pros for Jolicloud:
Native Screen Resolution of 1280x768 out of the box (or install as the case may be)
Different User Interface desktop layout
Apple/Mac style keyboard shortcuts work to close windows (ctrl+w) & exit programs (ctrl+q). Ubuntu & Windows do not do this.
Touchpad is fast for moving the cursor.
I like the black background & the colors & icons are easy on the eyes.

Cons for Jolicloud:
First time I tried to install last week, it kept quitting. It worked tonight, but it was very slow.
Slow start up load
Froze completely the 1st time I asked it to use the AT&T sim chip for data connection, had to force re-start.
2nd time I tried to use the AT&T data, it froze again. Not working.
Different User Interface desktop layout
Multitouch does not work, two fingers won't scroll
While Jolicloud is built on Ubuntu, it does not have as many programs & applications available without downloading or using the package manager
Jolicloud takes over any install of Ubuntu on the Booklet and I had to uninstall both to reinstall Ubuntu to get it to load again.

Overall: Jolicloud has a great deal of potential, esp. as a netbook OS for non-power/non-geek users. The User Interface has quite a bit of polish, the native screen resolution of the Nokia Booklet works on startup on Jolicloud, and I love that some Mac/Apple gestures & keyboard shortcuts just work. The downsides to Jolicloud of non-working 3G, missing programs & tools that Ubuntu ships with, slow load time, and the lack of multitouch on the touchpad make Jolicloud unworkable for me as a geek user who would like to use the Booklet as a mini-laptop that is a mini-dev box. But I will not discount Jolicloud as their developers are ambitious & very responsive and many of these issues may be solved within the month or two.

***

Conclusion:
I may expire waiting for Apple to deliver a cute, tiny, light, fully powered 10 inch MacBook Pro. Nokia has done the next best thing by making a cute, tiny, light, well designed 10 inch Nokia Booklet 3G. But... it is under powered with a bad operating system in Windows 7 Starter that slows the machine down and makes for a bad user experience. Sorry, but the Windows 7 experience does not cut it, even in the upgraded $80+ Ultimate version.

As with many Nokia products the hardware is beautiful, but the OS is either lacking or the wrong fit for the beautiful hardware. In the case of the Booklet, Windows is a wrong fit, but there are options out there and Nokia should give the customer a choice of a great user experience with the Booklet.

Nokia needs to step up their game and either develop a kick ass version of the Maemo OS for the Booklet, which would be delicious, or work with Ubuntu to make a Nokia branded version of Ubuntu that would make the Booklet experience a delight to use and worth the $600 unlocked asking price.

At this point, I would love to buy a Nokia Booklet 3G if it had a great OS, but not if it comes shipped with a bad OS at $600 when I could get a pink Eee PC at $275 and install Ubuntu on it for free.

Photo taken of the Booklet screen by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Tues 01.26.10 - Today was also a busy work day, thus my only accomplishments in making progress with the Nokia Booklet was to download and install the Oceanis Change Background program that Vaibhav of The Symbian Blog recommended.

Apparently the version of the Attack of the Redmond Drones that Nokia installed on the Booklet, Windows 7 Starter, is a non-starter in that it does very little and really is only there to irritate the Booklet's owner into returning it or paying MicroSquash $80+ to upgrade to Windows 7 Home or Ultimate. Since, I have no intention of giving any $$ to the dreaded Mordor, I mean, Redmond, I instead put a call of help out to Twitter and my mobile Tweeps delivered.

When I installed Oceanis Change Background, it put a very amusing cartoon in places of the Windows logo, of which I have taken a photo of and placed above, the caption that satirically sums up MicroSquash:

"It's a revolutionary approach really... Instead of developing new software adjusted to the user's needs, we've started developing new users, adjusted to the software's needs."

I also let the Booklet phone home to Finland and update itself and add Nokia Ovi Suite and the Nokia Social Hub. Ovi Suite is just the new name for Nokia PC Suite which is the way one is to supposedly manage one's mobile device's relationship with one's PC, but my mobile, currently a Nokia N97, is a Protestant and does not need to a middleman to manage its relationship with its deity, the MacBook Pro in this case. So, I closed Ovi Suite when it wanted the N97 to come to confession and make a connection.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Project52 : Week 4

Mon. 01.25.10 - Late this morning the Nokia 3G Booklet arrived from the folks at WOMWorld/Nokia for a two week trial review period. I am quite excited about this, I do love to tinker about on a new computer, especially one as lovely and beautifully designed as the Nokia 3G Booklet.

It is cute! It is tiny! It is solid! It is light in weight! It is well-made! Did I mention it was beautifully designed and cute?!?

And then....

I turned it on and I was confronted with the... evil blue background with the light waving Windows logo. Gah.

Fifteen minutes into my new love affair with #37, I had to turn her off and put her back into her wrapping and two boxes and then put her box under my bed, because Windows 7 had so elevated my blood pressure that I was ready to call DHL to take #37 back to London and then write a scathing review of how F*cking Evil Windows is and How it is the Worst Possible Decision... blah blah blah... all because I spent 15 mins trying to figure out how to change the damned Windows background into something more eye pleasing. Big, deep breath.

So, I returned to the work project that is on deadline for tomorrow and then surreptitiously searched Google for 'Nokia 3G Booklet Hackintosh', 'Nokia 3G Booklet Ubuntu 9.10 USB live boot', etc. Yes, I spent most of the rest of the afternoon deep in dual work mode and researching my options for a USB live boot of a real OS, an OS that keeps one's blood pressure at normal.

Which computer or mobile operating system one likes is not just a matter of brand preference, or what your friends like, or what you have already spent the time to learn, it is also about a mental metaphor and mind map. And that mental metaphor / mind map may still be uncomfortable even after learning how to use a system. Sometimes, one just has to give up an operating system that does not fit one's mental processes and move on to one that does. After reluctantly using Windows for years, I happily and with abandon switched over to Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X about 4 - 5 years ago and have never looked back.

I gladly pay the Apple Tax to get lovely, well designed hardware and OS. I am also happy to pay the Nokia Tax to get kick ass mobile cameraphones, even if I continue to be bewildered by Nokia's hard-on for all things Windows and how their Symbian mobile OS is mapped to Windows and its metaphor. One of the reasons that I am so excited about the Nokia N900 is that its OS is Maemo which is a lovely mobile version of Linux.

All of this adds up to, right now I just can't open up #37 the lovely Nokia 3G Booklet again, until I have time to create a USB stick with a live boot of Ubuntu or Moblin for the Booklet.

Drawing and Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N900.

Fri. 11.27.09 - Different folks will approach the same mobile device from a variety of perspectives, and I am here to tell you as a Professional Art Weirdo, the Nokia N900 exceeds my hopes as an Art Phone.

Yes. People. OMG. Creativity. Not. Consumption. This. Phone. Rocks.

I have spent all evening drawing, taking photos and trying out the browser. Tomorrow, I will get on X-Term and download Maemo Python and try some programming out.

The Nokia N900 has a native phone app called "Sketch", and while other mobiles I have used have had a sketch program, this is the first time that I have found the app to be usable as an actual sketching device. The feel of the N900 in my hand plus the screen ratio, on top of the line control in the sketch app, makes me feel like I am using a wee moleskine notebook. While the N900 is about a centimeter smaller in width & height as my moleskine, it does not need to be opened, instead I can use the stylus to draw with the device comfortably in my hand.

Comfortably after 20 minutes of sketching Scruffy's paw while he slept. The N900 did not feel weighty or get uncomfortable. I was able to switch between drawing with a fine line and then erasing to get the white space back. A true delight for an artist with small hands.

Then I used the camera on the N900 to take a close-up/macro photo with no flash of Scruffy's paw and the camera accurately captured the paw in the low light.

This is the mobile phone that I and other creatives dreamed of when I was doing my interviews in 2005 & 2006 for my master's thesis, 'Moleskine to Mobile: How Creative Professions Are Using Their Mobile Phones', has now arrived in one kick ass device. Multi-faceted creativity has returned to the N-Series.

Bravo!

*******
Related N900 Posts:
Nokia N900 : The Artist Phone
Nokia N900 : The Gold Standard Test
Nokia N900 - Views from the Pundit Analysts, Maemo & Python
The Nokia Flagship Face Off : Nokia N900 vs. Nokia N97 : Part I, Night Video

The design world, particularly the web design / user interface folk, have been going through a spasm of minimalism / simplicity lately with many top web folk redesigning their blogs to simple text, plain background (usually white or a light color), and a graphic line or two.

Tim Brown at Design Thinking has decided to plunge into the murky waters of design philosophy and semantics to parse out what the difference is between simplicity and minimalism as it pertains to web design / interface design. The articles does not end with his words, but the real debate begins in the comments as various designers debate what do the words and practices really mean.

Read it.

Now if you need a visual for who is the current king of minimalism, view this photo from 1982 which sums up the future of ID/UX 27 years later in one go.

This July, I participated in a three week trial of the Nokia N97 that included weekly Tangler chat meetings where we addressed various topic on and about the Nokia N97. During the time with the Nokia N97 trial device, I posted photos to this blog, tweeted about my in the moment rants/raves on the Nokia N97, posted a bit of video, and other wise left other bits of N97 commentary blowing about the winds of the internet.

Here is my official Nokia N97 Review and I am going to divide my review of the Nokia N97 into three parts plus and Aside section:

I. My Favorite Photos I took with the Nokia N97
II. A Real Life Story of the Nokia N97 and the iPhone 3GS, as it Went Down At the South Coast Plaza Apple Store and Who Won
III. The Things I Really like about the Nokia N97 and the Things I Really didn't like
IV. A Few Asides

Here we go:

I. My Favorite Photos I took with the Nokia N97

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97 in July of 2009.

While I did find it awkward to take photos with a device as big as the Nokia N97, as my hands are very small, other than a few issues with clarity and farther than I expected focal range, now looking back at the nearly 400 photos I took in the nearly 3 weeks with the Nokia N97, I really do like most of the non-close up day photos. The Nokia N97 does a fine job as a 5 megapixel camera, as evinced in the photos above.

The above photos, other than being resized, have not been retouched or processed in any way.

II. A Real Life Story of the Nokia N97 and the iPhone 3GS, as it Went Down At the South Coast Plaza Apple Store and Who Won

Last summer, when my sister's cell phone was 2 years old, my Mom and I discussed the idea of getting her a new one for her birthday. This June I brought up the subject again, as my sister's mobile was nearing on 3 years old and we decided that we would get her a new mobile phone for her birthday on July 21st.

To be fair, I thought that I should give my sister Allison the option to see, touch, and test/try out as many new mobile phones as possible. My sister's major usages on her mobile are texting, Gmail, taking photos, and sending her photos Vox blog. With this in mind, I handed her my HTC Magic / Google G2 phone for her to try out the touchscreen only Android phone. She was polite but not very interested.

Then I took her to the South Coast Plaza Apple store mid-July to see what she thought of the new iPhone 3GS. I had the trial Nokia N97 with me as I wanted her to compare both phones side by side.

We tried out the iPhone 3GS with me, bizarrely, acting as the salesperson showing her all the features and pointing out how many considered each feature to be far superior to any other smart phone on the market. All the while, I had the Nokia N97 out and showed Allison how it compared to the iPhone - from the Nokia's physical qwerty keyboard to the iPhone's touchscreen, we tested out how each phone's camera would take the same shot, we tried the internet on both phones, we tried the GPS, etc etc etc.

At one point we had two Apple sales humans watching me with fascinated horror, not saying a word as they stared at the Nokia N97 in my hand and the iPhone in my sister's hand.

I was actually hoping Allison would choose the iPhone, as it is So Much Cheaper than the N97, but at the end of our 15 minutes of fondling the iPhone at the Apple store, I asked Allison,

"So, honestly, what do you think?"

Allison on the iPhone, "It is too light and plasticky. I don't like the touchscreen and I don't like the photos."

Me, "But what about the User Interface? The flicking bits? All the apps."

Allison just looked at me and said, "I guess I am a Nokia girl."

She put the iPhone back on its pad and started to walk out.

********

This really happened. I did not pitch the Nokia N97 to Allison, if anything I was very indifferent about it, as it is not necessarily the phone I would choose.

My sister is an example of a person who wants a smart phone but doesn't want an iPhone, hard as it is for many people to believe at least to many of the designers I know. Since she received her Nokia N97 for her birthday, she has been very happy with it. I have asked her several times how it is going and she continues to be very happy.

My sister's experience is a living example of Rita Khoury's thesis that the N97 is for the connected user not the power user. My sister loves texting, email and Facebook, as she has FB always on and connected as a widget on her Nokia N97.

But Ms. Jen, you ask, what do you really think of the Nokia N97?

Mobile Tidbit #1: I just tweeted:

LG Viewty Smart & Samsung Pixon will do it, will Nokia & Apple do it? Choosing camera focus with touch: http://tinyurl.com/touchfocus

Honestly the most interesting bit of the new camera phones that LG and Samsung have coming out is not the 8.1 megapixels on the LG Viewty Smart nor the 12 megapixels on the Samsung Pixon, but the fact that both of them will be using the touch screen to introduce a "manual" focus to camera phones. By touching the area of the view screen, you can choose what part of the photo that you want the camera to focus on. This is exciting.

I am *shocked* that the Apple UX geniuses did not first come up with this innovative use of the touch screen as applied to camera phones, but then again, I am not really shocked, as the camera is just an after thought on the iPhone.

When I had my 45 minute trial of the Nokia N97 at SXSW where I compared its photos to the photos that my Nokia N95 took, my biggest complaint about the Nokia N97's photos is that the focus was off. It would be great if the N97 had the touch focus feature on it, as then I could have chosen where or who I wanted the camera to focus on rather than have sharp backgrounds and slightly blurry subjects.

Hey Nokia! That first firmware update for the Nokia N97... The update you will most likely release in July? Make sure that touch screen camera "manual/auto" focus is a part of that update, as it is too brilliant and and too useful to be left out.

Mobile Tidbit #2: What is in a Name?

For the last 5.5 days, I have been calling my new lovely Google I/O gift mobile device the "Android HTC Magic", as that is what folks that the Google I/O conference were calling it. But I heard at the event some folks calling it the G2 or the HTC Ion.

When I was hanging out with Justin yesterday, he was calling it the G2. And today on Android and Me, Taylor calls it the Google Ion (HTC Sapphire).

People, can we decide on one name and stick to it? Thanks.

If the folks at Starcut are going to proudly announce that they mobilize brands and media and charge a newspaper to mobilize the said newspaper's website, then they should educate themselves on the standards of the mobile user experience.

Major rule of the mobile web: Give the User a Choice. Don't assume that they want the full website or that they want a reduced site for mobile. Just because a script has detected that the browser coming to the site is a mobile browser, doesn't mean the reader/user wants to be forced into a locked sandbox with no exit. Don't assume that every user wants to reduce their data usage, some of us have unlimited plans. Give the user a choice.

Here are a few examples of Mobile Sites that do the User Experience right by giving the reader/user a choice to either view the mobile version or to switch over to the "classic", "full", "regular" version of the website:

Why does this matter? Well, not every Nokia or Sony Ericsson or Blackberry or insert name of mobile device is a smartphone with Opera Mini or a version of the Webkit or Gecko mobile browsers, but then again, not every Nokia or Sony or Blackberry or other mobile device is a simple device with a simple mobile web browser.

I think it is great that more and more websites offer mobile versions that are stripped down and load fast for mobile devices, but if you are going to strip out choice along with kilobytes, this is not good.

My Nokia N95 has a full featured web browser that renders most websites, except heavily AJAX sites, quite nicely. I have an unlimited data plan. Between my Nokia's browser and my data plan, I want to see the full version of most websites unless I need information quickly and then the mobile version is usually fine.

Not yesterday.

Yesterday, I left the house in a rush to meet up with Lauren Isaacson in Encino so that we could have lunch together before she departs for Vancouver. I was heading north on the 405 and passing the Long Beach Airport when I realized that I left my paper copy of the LA Times Food section. So, I did what I would normally do in this situation, I opened my Nokia's web browser and typed "latimes.com", instead of getting the usual, full web version of the LA Times website, I was forced into the mobile version of the site with no exit out.

No link to the full version. No links to the Food section. No ability to get out of the reduced web version. I then went to Google to search for the article and the Google search took me back to the front page of the mobile site with no link to the full version of the LATimes.com. Here is the mobile site that I saw with no link to the full version of the LATimes.com at either the top of the mobile page nor at the bottom:

I was very frustrated.

I was mad in the immediate situation of trying to locate information that was still live on the full version of the website but I was unable to get to the information because the mobile version of the site did not let me go there. I was mad as a web & mobile user experience designer to experience bad UX design first hand. I was frustrated that Starcut has probably charged the LA Times a lot of money to piss off loyal readers like me.

In the end, I had to use a desktop computer at Lauren's parent's house to search the LA Times' website for the article on the restaurant we were to go to. Itzik Hagadol is excellent, especially their 20 salads for $8.99.

But the lack of ability to exit the LA Times's mobile site from a mobile browser is not excellent. It would be excellent if Starcut would revisit the site and add a simple link at the top or the bottom of each mobile page, giving the reader/user the option to go to the full non-mobile version of the site from their mobile browser.

Take a stance. Even for a minute or two or a month or longer. Do it publicly.

One of the conversations, however briefly, I got into today on Twitter with Jonathan Greene was about John Gruber's iPhone post, "Complex".

While I agree with Gruber's initially stated premise that starting with a simple problem or solving a problem (just one) is a great way to begin any project. Once the simple has been defined, then build on it. Gruber goes from strength to strength to Apple fanboi kool-aid drinking by the end of the post.

In one of my Tweets, I pose the question:

"Gruber is very much in the Apple fold. That is why I ask if he is making a theoretical stance rather than an accurate assessment"

I think it makes great articles to take a stance and argue from it. I think it makes great art when one decides to take a stance, even if briefly, know where one resides in that theoretical space as one creates and practices one's art. But it is also important, whether one is writing articles or creating art to clearly acknowledge the stance and space that one is standing in, so that the reader or viewer can also know where to stand.

What do I mean by this? In Gruber's piece, his lack of a disclaimer or acknowledgment to the audience or even to himself of his US-centric and Apple-centric position makes the ending arguments of his piece fall flat if the reader falls outside of the concentric circles that Gruber is assuming that everyone is agreeing on. Many of the ideas in his article are intriguing, such as basing a series of devices on a software/firmware platform first rather than the function of the device, but this assumes that all the readers have drunken deeply of the iPhone kool-aid and are devotees at the shrine of Jobs. But what happens to the cult when Jobs retires and the powers that be don't carry on the same way? What happens if Gruber is looking at Apple's strategy from a theoretical stance or from a critical (in the academic sense) 20/20 hindsight review of the last eight years of strategy rather than what may or may not have happened?

This year at SXSW, Andy Budd and I had two very fun rounds of debate about Apple, the iPhone and anything that Nokia is doing. We were to have round three but never got to it. Andy is a User Experience professional, not only does he blog about it, run a whole web firm predicated on UX (clearleft), writes books on it, and speaks on UX, but he also firmly lives it. I thoroughly enjoy engaging Andy on topics of UX as it intersects mobile, as it is a great place for my great passion of mobile to cross his of UX. Andy and I disagree on the iPhone. While I agree with him that it is the "game changer" of 2007/2008, I don't think we can assume that it will be going forward.

I argue that Nokia and other firms cannot be discounted in the wake of the iPhone, as not every user/customer/person will be satisfied by the iPhone's features, functions, and OS. I have a number of non-web-design LA area creative friends who tried the iPhone and returned it before the 30 days were up for an Android G-1, a Sidekick 3, or for a Crackberry. I also have a number of friends and colleagues in LA and other places, who prefer Nokia Nseries phones to the iPhone, of which I am one of them. Most of us in this category want camera phones that take great photos.

On Twitter, I summed up my statements with on Gruber's article:

"It can be easy to forget culture & sub-cultural usage patterns as well as differing personal usage. The US is not all."

To this end, both in Gruber's article and in my own conversations with web colleagues who are passionate about A or B or C or X or Z device, I think we all have to remember that different mobile devices are not just fulfilling a cultural zeitgeist of the moment (like the iPhone in the US right now), or a sub-cultural niche (like the Sidekick 2 in the North American punk scene from 2005-2007), but also individual's differing usage patterns.

I do think it is important to state, even if briefly where one stands in that moment within the frame of the discussion so that the reader/viewer knows what one's theoretical stance is.

This is why I always encourage my friends who are excited about digital photography to write about and publicly dialogue about whether they are most interested in the act of shooting the photo or in the act of processing it later on their computer. Do you post your photos as is or do you process them? It is not an inconsequential factoid, but a record of your artistic / photographic journey that helps your viewers to know where you stand right now.

This is why I try to be clear that, for now, I like to shoot photos with camera phones, as I like the immediacy, I like the constraints, and I like to send my photos to this blog or to Flickr unprocessed, as is. And on the other side, for my friends who the great pleasure comes in the hour or two spent at their computer later processing their DSLR photos, good - many beauties upon you. Let us know about your process.

Why do I talk about theoretical stances or spaces in conjunction with John Gruber, the iPhone, Andy Budd, Twitter, Flickr, and camera phones this late in the evening after a long day? Well, in my recent post on the Nokia N95 vs. the Nokia N97, I was outright that my interest is in the camera capacity of the device and in response to some comments, I made a few comments that went deeper into the the territory of the quality of the camera being preeminent. I didn't make these comments to inflame but to iterate that my theoretical space and concern as an individual user of mobile devices is that of a photographer first and foremost.

From what position or space are you standing in right now?