Keep It Simple Stupid!

A cell-phone that's small enough to fit behind the ear,
can dial out automatically when you think of calling someone, and notifies you
of an incoming call with a tickle!

That's the dream phone of the inventor of the cell-phone,
Dr Martin Cooper, a former employee of Motorola. He foresaw the phones of the
future to be able to hide the increasing complicated technology behind intuitive
and simple interfaces. At the moment though with cell-phones packing more
applications and services, and technology advancing at a rapid pace, the user
interfaces also seem to be getting more complex. Technology is supposed to make
lives simple. But somewhere in the race of more features versus ease of use the
former always wins.

Check out a new phone that a colleague has bought, and it
is not altogether a comfortable experience. It takes me a while to get the hang
of how to work it. Menus differ from brand to brand. Menus even differ in phones
from the same brand depending on the features it has, or the services it can
support. Using a new feature, a new service often turns out to be a rough
experience for many. And even if after the first few tries, the experience
remains as tough, we tend to not use the feature or the service. Please see the
menu on your phone and check how many commands or features you are not familiar
with-or have tried and given up.

Beyond the features of phone usage there are the new
services on offer. Most don't know what the service can do, and how much it
will cost. And if they have tried, they have not got beyond the first five
minutes of jabbing away at the buttons. For instance, on my phone, I have a menu
that says Services, and another that says Operator's Services. What's the
difference?  Users tend to shy away
from services that they cannot intuitively understand. If you use SMS a lot,
then sending e-mail shouldn't be tough. But after you have been through the
process of entering the e-mail ID, subject line, and then the message, you still
have to enter the server number and other details, which not everyone will know,
or care for. Remember that when SMS had just been launched, one had to enter the
delivery center number for all the messages sent. But soon it was fixed and the
SIM could handle this on its own.

One reason for this is that the mobile phone is trying to
evolve as an all-in-one. The phone wants to be a computer, a camera, a music
system, a TV, and everything else. The more features are added to a phone, the
more complicated the usage experience becomes.

Handset providers and service companies are no doubt aware
of the virtues of simplicity-for many users it provides an excellent usage
experience. One way of making the overall user experience better is to have a
closer working between the operator who offers services and the handset
manufacturer. NTT DoCoMo was among the first companies to design its own
handsets. Vodafone, Orange, and other operators who have presence in various
markets are now trying to specify guidelines, which each handset maker is
recommended to follow. This is to ensure that all of their users get a
consistent experience.

No doubt it is a challenge for the handset vendors to add
more and more features, while making the interface simple and intuitive. One
reason for Nokia's runaway success in India has been the intuitive menu. And
once the customer is used to the basic structure of Nokia even for the next
purchase he goes for the same brand.