Handsets are too complex for consumers!!
Posted by Ron van Valkengoed
Interesting piece of research reveals that consumers consider setting-up mobile applications and services is too complex. This holds them back from buying new (more advanced) phones and trying new services. This is bad news for operators and device manufacturers that are spending millions on bringing new devices and services to market…..
Is this a big surprise? No!
As long as device manufacturers have a strategy of competing on design and providing consumers a Swiss Knife-like device (Technology/Feature push) to keep their Average Sales Price (ASP) high without developing an end-to-end service (device, software, network) with the end user in mind (only most relevant features, take away comlexity). Likewise most operators are deploying MDM tools, with a focus of firmware updates (>200 software bugs per launched device) and pushing the right network settings, to keep connectivity/data revenues going.
Basically the device manufacturers and operators need to change their business model from a technology/infrastructure push to an end-to-end service designed around the end-user. Both Blackberry and Apple have already provided the proof points that this is the way to go.
Question will be whether the device manufacturers and operators have the capability and competence to make this change over time…..
Well this is a nice peice of information. I as a retailer and a consumer understand the pains of end users that can’t operate software or install software on their devices, yes, this can be upsetting.
As technology grows and more people get invovled in the creation and manufacturing on software there need to be an understanding that the more difficult we make the software the less interesting to the general public it’s going to be.
If you ask me, we need to design software to be more smarter. What I mean by this is that the software need to operate according to the end users knowledge of the technology that is in his or her hands. Everybody that buys our products wasn’t standing next to us as we were developing the software, and you are sadly mistaken if you think that all end users have a technical degree.
If you want to sell more product, you have to make more user friendly, or smarter software that can do more to develop the user that uses it.
Mobile consumers are frustrated by the difficulty of “discoverability” — how to get to the right app at the right time — like changing the time on the clock function or finding Bluetooth. Also, many smartphone users have 1K to even 3K contacts now (unbelievable, but it is true), and finding the right contact or even the SMS from one’s friend or finding a music file or specific photo (yes, again, hundreds and hundreds of photos!) — mobile content search on a file-rich device is increasingly becoming a significant issue for phone users.
We have just launched a new mobile search app called T9 Nav for the Symbian 60 V3 platform — available now via download from the Nokia Software Market:
http://www.softwaremarket.nokia.com/?action=productDetails&pID=6302&pmsid=305&lang=en