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Mobile device in the modern sense

Stuart Taylor, Director of Cisco IBSG Consulting

I'll start with the definition of a modern mobile device. Previously, a mobile phone was any device for telephone communication the size of a brick that could be carried with you. Now we have at our disposal smartphones, tablets, e-readers and other gadgets that accompany us everywhere and without which we cannot imagine our existence. Moreover, in addition to telephone communication, they support many other functions. Thus, mobile devices are no longer phones. They have evolved into mobile computers, books, entertainment panels, gaming consoles and social media hotspots. And since many of them connect to the network mainly through Wi-Fi channels, then from the point of view of networks they have ceased to be mobile in the full sense of the word.

To understand how and when users use their mobile devices, in March 2012, the consulting division Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted an online survey of 1,079 users of such devices living in the United States. A similar study was conducted in Brazil, the UK, Canada and Mexico. The survey results allow us to draw three conclusions:

Mobile devices have become "nomadic" devices with Wi-Fi technology

Mobile devices are very popular with their owners. The study found that 75 percent of Americans own mobile computers (laptops). Even more remarkable is that in the United States, the number of smartphone users has exceeded the number of regular cell phone users: 52 percent of respondents are among the former. And one more thing: just two years after the first iPads appeared on the market, 20 percent of people in the United States purchased one or another tablet computer and another 20 percent purchased an e-reader.

It is characteristic that all these devices can connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi technology. Moreover, for all mobile devices except smartphones, Wi-Fi has become the main network access technology (see diagram below).

However, all laptops, tablets and e-readers, which should be called “nomad” devices rather than mobile devices, almost always connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, and only about 20 percent of them use cellular connections from time to time.

Entertainment moves into the palm of our hands

New mobile devices are increasingly becoming the main sources of entertainment. Using these devices, almost half of their users regularly watch videos, listen to music, read books and play games. A quarter of users, bored, immediately turn to their mobile device. In our opinion, this trend will only intensify as the functionality of devices expands and the speed of networks improves.

My home is my platform

Although the listed devices are usually called mobile, as a rule, they are used at home. All owners of mobile devices work with them at home on average more than 2.5 hours a day, that is, more than twice as long as at work. And while two-thirds of users still use these devices on the go, the mobile world is changing, becoming increasingly nomadic (mobile work now averages half an hour a day) as these devices are increasingly used in the home. In the future, according to users, mobile devices will be increasingly used in the home.

New type of mobility

Communication services purchased from local operator mobile network and freeing the subscriber from being tied to telephone wires and wall sockets. Wi-Fi technology has changed the meaning of this concept. As already mentioned, today most mobile devices support Wi-Fi technology. This technology has broken the monopoly of mobile operators on services wireless communication, relieving the subscriber of wires. Although Wi-Fi may not have all the features of networks cellular communications, the subscriber now has a choice. It can connect to the Internet through two types of wireless channels: through a mobile cellular network or through a Wi-Fi network. Here are the conclusions we came to after analyzing the results of the survey we organized:

Mobile users connect their devices to networks primarily via Wi-Fi

Growing popularity of devices and points Wi-Fi access clearly shows the preferences of users who choose this particular method of connecting to the Internet.

This graph shows that most users connect their devices via Wi-Fi from time to time. This is, in particular, what 70 percent of smartphone owners do, and almost half of the owners of tablet computers, laptops and e-readers connect to the Internet exclusively via Wi-Fi. Although 30 percent of smartphone users connect to the mobile network only via cellular channels, the remaining 70 percent also connect via Wi-Fi. On average, one third of smartphone connections to the Internet (by connection duration) occur via Wi-Fi. No less surprising is that, with the exception of smartphone owners, all other users prefer to connect all their devices to the Internet via Wi-Fi channels. With access to both types of channels, more than 80 percent of tablet, laptop and e-reader owners either choose Wi-Fi (rather than cellular) or use either of the two options without showing any particular preference. Among smartphone owners, just over half prefer Wi-Fi or have no preference regarding the choice of one of the two access technologies.

Users prefer to connect mobile devices not through cellular networks, but using Wi-Fi

Surprisingly, but true: when mobile device users are given freedom of choice, they choose Wi-Fi over cellular networks in all respects except the size of coverage areas. It is also important that, according to most parameters, a quarter of users do not see any difference between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Although Wi-Fi technology can't compete with cellular networks in terms of coverage, Wi-Fi channels are generally considered easier to use and more reliable than cellular networks. In addition, despite the obvious technical superiority of cellular communications in the field of information security, users almost never take this fact into account. Thus, a situation arises that is quite typical for high technology: a large gap arises between real technological capabilities and their perception by users, as well as between the main characteristics of access networks of both types.

New mobile device = Wi-Fi + cellular

Judging by the results of our research, a new paradigm of mobile communications is being born before our eyes. It is characterized by the tight integration of Wi-Fi and cellular technology, making these access methods indistinguishable to the end user. Nearly 60 percent of respondents expressed "interest" or even "very interest" in flat monthly plans with access to unlimited data over combined access networks. No wonder that the greatest advantages This was called low cost and unlimited traffic, i.e. factors that should end disputes over tariff plans. However, more than a quarter of those surveyed cited flexibility in choosing a place of work, reliable communications, and unhindered roaming between networks as advantages.

Wi-Fi goes public

According to forecasts World Wireless Alliance (Wireless Broadband Alliance), by 2015 the number of public Wi-Fi hotspots will more than quadruple to 5.8 million. The increasing availability of Wi-Fi networks is creating a new environment for device nomads, competing with traditional cellular networks and supporting new types of mobile devices and new lifestyles for their owners (see previous chapter). Modern users want to have access to Wi-Fi networks in cafeterias, at stadiums, and even in line at the checkout counter in a particular store. Here's what the results of our research say about this:

A third of mobile users connect to a public Wi-Fi network at least once a week

Mobile users work with Wi-Fi networks not only at home and in the office.

As this graph shows, a third of users connect to public hotspots at least once a week, and 12 percent do so even more often. Public Wi-Fi access points are usually located in public places: in parks, on the streets, in cafes, restaurants and shops. When asked where they thought it would be best to locate new hotspots, respondents named parks, restaurants, cafes, hospitals, grocery stores, subways and large shopping centers.

Users need free Wi-Fi

The booming Wi-Fi business has significantly changed user expectations. Today, almost no one pays for access to public Wi-Fi hotspots. Three quarters of subscribers who regularly use Wi-Fi channels work through free hotspots, and 19 percent include this service in a general tariff plan: broadband (8 percent), mobile (7 percent) or discounted (4 percent). The small proportion of Wi-Fi users (less than 1 percent) who regularly pay for such service obtain access in hotels, airports and trains, where these costs are typically reimbursed by employers.

People do not understand who provides them with free access - the Wi-Fi provider or the mobile operator

In the US, only a few cell phone carriers include public Wi-Fi in their plans. Typically, this is what broadband service providers do. But, paradoxically, most users associate free wifi not with broadband providers, but with services mobile operators. Users clearly view Wi-Fi as wireless technology, more like a mobile phone service rather than a home broadband service. Either way, it is clear that this perception needs to be challenged through active marketing and education of broadband subscribers. Operators like AT&T, Verizon And Comcast, in one form or another offer free services Wi-Fi as part of home broadband plans, but only a third of subscribers know about it. Cablevision stands out against this backdrop: 60 percent of its broadband subscribers know that Wi-Fi access is included in their subscription services. Most likely, Cablevision achieved this through active marketing.

Passpoint will take Wi-Fi technology to a new level of convenience and accessibility

In the modern world, two trends are clearly visible: the growing popularity of new mobile devices that support Wi-Fi technology, and the increasing - almost ubiquitous - distribution of Wi-Fi access points in most countries. Recent Poll mobile users, conducted by Cisco's consulting arm IBSG, clearly showed that most mobile devices now support Wi-Fi. Another interesting fact is that when using these devices, their owners are 70-80 percent likely to be within reach of Wi-Fi access points. In addition, according to the study, in one third of cases, smartphone users prefer to access the Internet via Wi-Fi channels rather than through cellular networks.

According to Cisco forecasts, in two years the number Wi-Fi connections will be equal to the number of mobile cellular network connections. Wi-Fi technology has truly become an integral part of mobile communications. Subscribers are increasingly using it to access multimedia mobile applications and services using increasingly important “nomad” devices: tablet computers and e-readers.

However, working in a Wi-Fi environment creates a number of problems. Who hasn't experienced the annoyance of being asked to enter a complex password when trying to connect to a web page via Wi-Fi? Moreover, every time you return to this page, you have to enter the password again and again. Research conducted by Cisco IBSG clearly shows that users want tight integration between Wi-Fi access points. In addition, they increasingly require the same integration between Wi-Fi networks and mobile cellular networks.

Recently Wi-Fi Alliance (Wi-Fi Alliance, WFA) announced a hardware testing and certification program called Passpoint. It will make this integration a reality and become a new interoperable industry platform supported by multiple networks and devices. Passpoint will revolutionize the Wi-Fi user experience and become a critical means of offloading cellular networks, transferring traffic from base stations to access points. Here are the main functions of this program, scheduled for implementation in mid-2012:

• Network recognition and selection: Devices recognize and communicate with Passpoint networks in the background without requiring user intervention.
• Seamless network access: No credentials required via browser for authentication. Subscribers do not need to enter a password. Devices are authenticated to automatic mode by SIM card with a name and password or by an installed security certificate.
• Secure Authentication and Connection: All connections are secured using WPA2-Enterprise, which provides a level of security comparable to cellular networks.

Then, in 2013, within the framework of the Passpoint program it is planned to implement:

• instant subscriber account creation (optimizing the process of creating a new subscriber account at the access point. This feature will help providers create a unified resource allocation methodology).
• Operator policy (support for operator rules for working with subscribers, including rules for selecting networks).

Cisco actively collaborates with the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). The company actively supports the WFA Passpoint program and the comprehensive WBA program called Next Generation Hotspot, considering them the most important elements of the new stage of development mobile technologies. Cisco IBSG calls this phase the “New Mobile Era,” which will integrate all the business and technical aspects of cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Passpoint will not only significantly improve the quality of Wi-Fi services, but also ensure seamless and secure integration mobile networks two different types. This innovation will bring great benefits not only to subscribers, but also to all other participants in the mobile ecosystem.

To date, the number of all registered connections to mobile communications, in other words, active SIM cards, has exceeded seven billion.

Now almost everyone has a phone. There are so many cell phone models that it is not so easy to navigate them. Before buying, you should ask yourself: “Why do I need a phone?” Otherwise, you may overpay for features that you will never use. If it is assumed that the phone will only be a means of communication, there is no point in paying more than 2,000 rubles for it. A loud ringer and convenient buttons for dialing SMS – that’s all you need.

If you intend to use , the task becomes more difficult. You'll need a large screen (at least 3 inches) to easily browse the Internet and read email. Pay attention to the resolution - for phones with a 3.5-4 inch screen it must be at least 480x800, otherwise the image will be grainy. The touch screen has ceased to be a sign of the device’s prestige. It’s still not easy for some to get used to it, but looking at the latest trends in the field of phone development, you understand that you’ll still have to get used to it - almost all current new products do not have buttons.

If you like to travel the world, photograph exotic beauties and immediately post them on social networks, it makes sense to invest in a phone with a good camera. Today the quality of photographs taken on telephone, is not inferior to many digital cameras, and you will save yourself from unnecessary baggage. But be sure to check what memory limit the gadget model you like supports. To store photos and videos, you will most likely need a removable memory card.

Laptop or netbook?

Many people still don’t quite understand what the difference is between . The main difference between a netbook is its compactness and simplicity of design. Netbooks generally have longer battery life. But there is also a minus - the netbook does not have a built-in DVD drive. But it is equipped with a USB port, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a webcam.

This is an ideal gadget for those who cannot part with the Internet even for an hour. The netbook has low performance, but it is convenient to browse pages and respond to emails. Word, PowerPoint and Excel can be easily mastered by anyone netbook, which makes it very convenient for business people, students and anyone whose work involves frequent travel and constant correspondence. But Photoshop, 3D Max, games with good graphics and other “heavy” programs are only capable of the most modern netbooks. So for designers and those who like to shoot alien monsters, most netbooks are useless.

It's obvious that laptop– a more “serious” device with greater technical capabilities. It's worth accordingly. If a fairly high-quality netbook can be purchased for 10,000 rubles, then a laptop will most likely cost twice as much. However, if movies, games and graphics work aren't your thing, don't waste your money.

Smartphone. I carry everything I have with me

The evolution of mobile phones has led to the fact that in terms of performance and solution capabilities various tasks they are almost on par with computers. Smartphone is a gadget that combines the functions of a PC and a phone. The main difference between smartphones is the operating system. Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS and Windows Phone– each has its pros and cons.

The system is especially popular in our country Android. Its strengths are a variety of widgets, integration with social networks, 4G support and a huge number of applications, including free ones.

iOS- brainchild. It features a simple and user-friendly interface, a variety of applications and high quality service. iTunes makes it easy to buy apps, movies, and music in one place. Very significant disadvantages - the system is used only on a very expensive iPhone, even simple applications, as a rule, paid.

Windows Phone created relatively recently based on the most advanced solutions. An excellent interface, good animation, integration with Microsoft services are the undoubted advantages of this system.

BlackBerry OS– the choice of businessmen. Secure and fast email is very important for information war fighters. However, not everywhere it is possible for this system to operate normally - this requires additional software. So maintenance is quite expensive.

When choosing a smartphone this year, first of all, you should focus on the top three software – Android, iOS, Windows Phone.

Tablet. Paper Media Executioner

If a smartphone is a hybrid of a computer and a phone, then a tablet is a cross between a smartphone and a laptop. From one of the “parents” it inherited a large touch screen, from the other – performance and functionality. At the same time, the gadget is small in size. The tablet is very convenient for reading e-books and newspapers, surfing the Internet, and playing games.

Most - iPad, but there are many other models in this category. The main characteristics by which you should choose a device - weight, time battery life and screen size. When purchasing, you need to pay special attention to external interfaces - the presence and number of USB connectors, an HDMI port for connecting to a TV, a card slot MicroSD memory. Few people know about this, but devices with metal casings receive WiFi worse - problems can arise if the point is located behind several concrete walls or at a long distance. But the metal body is stronger, although heavier.

Most modern digital devices are designed to help us stay connected in any environment. Physical distances are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Government offices are being replaced by virtual offices, long meetings in uncomfortable rooms are replaced by video conferences, and the latest news arrives simultaneously in Moscow and Addis Ababa. The information world is becoming more compact and richer. And perhaps very soon the phrase “business trip” will become an anachronism - all matters will be resolved where we want it.

With the beginning of the boom era of mobile devices, developers were faced with a choice: whether to keep mobile versions their sites along with “full-fledged” ones, or should sites become adaptive and independently adjust to different screen sizes?

Currently, when building mobile versions of websites, there are 3 main ways to build them:

• Adaptive design;
• Separate mobile version of the site;
• RESS (Responsive Design + Server Side).

Each method has its own pros and cons, which I will try to describe in detail.

Adaptive design

CSS3 Media Queries are commonly used to implement responsive design. Depending on the screen size, the user will see a different picture:

@media screen and (max-width: 1600px) ( div.for-example (width: 1500px;) ) @media screen and (max-width: 1280px) ( div.for-example (width: 1100px;) ) @media screen and (max-width: 1024px) ( div.for-example (width: 980px;) )

Benefits of Responsive Design

• Ease of development - With adaptive layout, the entire site structure automatically adjusts to different screen widths. In order to get a working product, you don’t need to write everything from scratch - you just need to tweak the CSS and HTML... Taking into account the availability of frameworks like Bootstrap, such development is not very difficult with a standard implementation. Moreover, supporting such a product will be a relatively simple task.
• One URL - saves us from unnecessary redirects and the need for the user to remember the address of the mobile version (even if it’s just the prefix m.). Also, having a single address will have a positive effect on website promotion, since it will be “more convenient” for search engines to work.

Disadvantages of Responsive Design

• Various tasks - Typical tasks of “mobile” users of large sites usually differ from the tasks of PC users. If you are a bank client, then most likely, in the mobile version of the site you will be interested in a very limited range of information - addresses of the nearest branches, ATMs, etc.
  In general, with adaptive layout, the most common approach is to make a copy of a regular website and implement the needs of all groups of the target audience in the layout for phones. But then you can forget about usability. The secondary sections needed by five percent of visitors will create inconvenience for the majority of customers.
The "weight" of websites remains a major barrier for mobile phone users. This means that some active elements typical for desktop sites, including embedded cards, videos, credit calculators and menus with animation on mobile sites, must be replaced with lighter alternatives. Can responsive design give us this opportunity? In a popular implementation, a user with a small screen must load the entire page to see only part of it. For example, if the desktop version of the main layout weighs 200 KB, and the mobile version weighs another 50 KB, you will have to download 250 KB to view it. Of course, you can use page code compression, but there will still be unnecessary requests to the server.
• Hopelessness - One of undeniable advantages mobile version: if you don’t like it, you can disable it and switch to a regular domain. Responsive design websites don't give you this simple but important choice. If the adapted layout is inconvenient, buggy, or if it hides an important navigation element, write it down: there is nothing you can do to see it again. You'll have to run to look for a desktop or a competitor's website. You can come up with “crutches” to bypass this limitation (use cookies and connect different style sheets). But this approach complicates development.

In general, the idea of ​​​​developing a mobile version in responsive design is quite popular, despite the above-mentioned disadvantages. In particular, this concept is fully supported by such giants as, for example, Google.

Separate mobile version of the site

To make a website convenient for mobile users, separate versions of websites are often created - specifically targeted at users with a smartphone/tablet. The most common practice is to redirect mobile users to a special subdomain (m.example.com, mobile.example.com, etc.). Probably, in 99% of cases, the mobile version is a stripped-down main version - only with the functionality that, in the opinion of the developers, will be necessary and useful for users of mobile devices and tablets.

Advantages of the mobile version

• Ease of change - Since the site exists, de facto, separately from the main version, making changes to it related only to the mobile version is much easier, since the mobile version most often does not provide redundant, unnecessary functionality.
• User friendliness - The mobile version is usually greatly simplified compared to the desktop version, so the user will not have to go far to find the information he needs.
• Speed ​​- due to the same simplification of the site, the mobile version loads faster. This is essential for users who still use GPRS or weak 3G.
• Choice- Most often, in the mobile version it is possible to switch to the main version of the site.

Disadvantages of the mobile version

• Several addresses -
• Inconvenience for the user - There are different addresses for the desktop and mobile versions. For some, this may be a plus, for others it can be an extremely irritating factor when, in order to conveniently view the site, you need to remember another address. There are also problems with search engines: to avoid duplicate content, SEO specialists need to use meta tags rel=“alternative” and rel=“canonical”. In addition, when a mobile user Google search clicks on the link in the results, he will be taken to the desktop version or redirected to the mobile one. But if the mobile version of this page does not exist, he will receive an error message.
• Limited - Creating a separate mobile site means getting rid of some content and functionality. Additionally, you may have two different sets of content, which can negatively impact the overall information picture.

In general, creating mobile versions of websites pays off quite well, particularly for large projects. As an example, Amazon uses a special, mobile version of its website.

RESS

Google itself, although it supports the use of responsive design by webmasters, uses a different system in its products. If you go, for example, to the main page under different User-Agents, you can see different HTML for different devices. RESS - Responsive Design + Server Side. An example of an implementation sketched “on the knee”:

$DS = DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR; require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . $DS . "libraries" . $DS . "browser.php"); $device = BBrowser::detectDevice(); if($device == DEVICE_TYPE_MPHONE)( $tmpl = "template.m.php"; ) else if($device == DEVICE_TYPE_TABLET)( $tmpl = "template.t.php";) else( $tmpl = "template .php"; ) include(dirname(__FILE__) . $DS . "templates" . $DS . $tmpl);

Pros of RESS

In fact, the method can include the benefits of both a separate mobile and responsive version of sites, depending on the implementation. From what will be new:

• Traffic minimization - Unneeded JavaScript can be removed from the HTML, which frees up CPU, memory and cache on the mobile device. HTML and CSS can also be specially optimized.
• It is possible to use targeting - for example, for Android devices it is suggested to download the application from GooglePlay, and for Apple - from iTunes. You can make your own layout for each device.

Cons of RESS

• Difficulty in development - such a method will require appropriate server settings and the work of more programmers. It will also be necessary to make several different layout options.
• Device detection mechanism - Unfortunately, even in our time it has not yet been brought to perfection. Stories about how someone's rare phone was not identified as a mobile device pop up quite often.

In general, RESS is the best of the three proposed options, but it requires much more labor during development.

Summary

In my personal opinion, there is no ideal option that everyone should use. The best option for me is RESS. However, this is one of the rare options because it requires a lot of effort to implement. In general, all 3 options have their pros and cons, depending on the essence and focus of the site.

One of the factors that makes mobile interactions such an interesting topic for research and design is that the field is largely driven by innovation, with rapid adoption into everyday user experience and enormous market potential. Here, cutting-edge technologies are continually being developed, new applications are constantly being explored, and successful innovative ideas and applications reach millions of users. In fact, by the end of 2010, for the first time in history, more smartphones than personal computers were sold worldwide, with over 100 million mobile units shipped to customers in the last three months. computer devices.

Reflecting the dynamic and fast-paced nature of the industry, the industry's leading position has shifted from brand to brand several times in just a decade—from Palm to Nokia to Apple—and is likely to change again in the future. Obviously, this state of affairs encourages researchers and designers to continue to innovate and develop new technologies and applications. The main driving factor in the development of mobile technologies was the widespread use of interactive systems and devices for both work and leisure. Mobile phones have long been one of those devices that - at least one copy - is owned by almost every inhabitant of the planet and widely used for personal purposes, and not just for work. Thanks to internet and multimedia enabled phones such as Apple iPhone— smartphones have decisively taken over the mass market, ceasing to be an exclusive attribute of a small business elite.

The introduction of mobile technology into our work and personal lives has had a profound impact on the way we perceive and use portable digital devices. They are no longer just battery-powered computers. They became objects of functional design, whose appearance, as well as the user experience they provide, leaves us deeply impressed.

1. Introduction

Mobile computing(Mobile computing, lit. “mobile computing”) is a relatively new area of ​​research, with a history of just over three decades. During this time, it expanded from the initial purely technical scope of the application to the study of usability (Usability - ergonomics), usefulness (Usefulness), user experience (user eXperience, UX). This has given rise to the burgeoning field of Mobile Interaction Design, which sits at the intersection of mobile computing, social science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), industrial design, and user experience design, among other industries.

Mobile computing plays an important role in the widespread dissemination of digital computing resources in modern civilization. Combined with the proliferation of fixed and built-in computer technology throughout society, mobile devices such as Cell Phones and other handheld or wearable digital devices have given rise to a state of ubiquitous and always-on computing, in which we are more surrounded by computing devices than by people. Ensuring we can organize these devices to fit our personal and work lives is a huge challenge for technology developers, and "as a consequence of the rise of ubiquitous computing, interaction design will become one of the fundamental humanities of the twenty-first century" (McCullough, Malcolm, “Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, Knowledge as Environment” - McCullough, Malcolm: Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowledge, 2004) .

Region mobile computers originates in the successful coordination of the interests of technologists and consumers. Since the dawn of the digital age, there has always been a technological push to miniaturize computing hardware, and ever since computers became widespread, consumers have shown great interest in devices they can take with them. As a result of this trend, the history of mobile computing is paved with countless commercially available devices. Most of them had short term exploitation and had minimal effect on technological progress, but others significantly pushed the boundaries of engineering and interaction design. It is the latest devices and their importance that will be discussed below.

2. Seven waves of mobile computing

The history of mobile computing can be divided into several eras or waves, each characterized by a distinct technological emphasis, trends in interaction design, and leading to fundamental changes in the design and use of mobile devices. In our opinion, the history of mobile computing to this day suggests the presence of 7 particularly important waves. Although they are not strictly sequential, they provide a good overview of the heritage on which current research and current developments in mobile computing are built.

1. Portability

2. Miniaturization

3. Connectivity

4. Convergence

5. Divergence

6. Applications

7. Digital ecosystems

In the era portability special attention was paid to reducing the size of the hardware, allowing for the creation of computers that could be physically moved with relative ease. Miniaturization was to create new and significantly smaller mobile form factors that allowed the use of personal portable devices while on the move. Connectivity was associated with the development of devices and applications that allowed users to be online and communicate via wireless data networks on the go. Convergence was to combine new types of digital mobile devices, such as pocket personal computers (PDAs, Personal Digital Assistant, PDA - “personal digital secretary”), mobile phones, music players, cameras, games, etc., into hybrid devices. Divergence took the opposite approach to interaction design, promoting information devices with specialized—rather than generalized—functionality. Last wave applications is about developing meaningful content for use and consumption on mobile devices, and making it easy to access for entertainment or functional interactive app content. Finally, the emerging wave digital ecosystems associated with the broader capabilities of widespread and interconnected technologies, part of which are increasingly becoming interactive mobile systems.

2.1. Portability

The first wearable computers, the forerunners of today's laptops, were developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The inspiration for these projects was the concept of Dynabook (“Dynamic Book”), put forward by an American scientist in the field of computing systems Alan Kay in 1968. The Dynabook concept was originally intended to be a personal computing machine for children, but observant entrepreneurs such as GRiD Systems founder John Ellenby quickly realized that the starting point for something innovative would be "the customer with the most money and the most demands."

The first portable computer in the laptop form factor was the GRiD Compass 1101, designed by Bill Moggridge back in 1981, taking into account the design requirements that the device should not take up more than half of a typical business portfolio. Compass had a 16-megahertz Intel 8086 processor, 256 kilobytes of DRAM memory, a 6-inch flat screen with a resolution of 320x240 pixels, a 340 kilobyte magnetoelectronic storage device, a modem providing network connection at a speed of 1200 bps. The computer weighed 5 kg and ran its own graphical operating system called GRiD OS. The device, due to its high price (about $20,000), was mainly sold to departments related to the US federal government: for example, NASA, which used it on missions Space programs Shuttle in the early 1980s, as well as the Department of Defense. The GRID Compass design included a stunning forty-three patent-protected innovative features, including a flat-panel display and a flip-up screen.

But the first portable computer to achieve real commercial success was the compact Compaq Portable of 1982, which, as the first official clone of the IBM PC, could run the MS-DOS operating system and standard PC programs. In 1988, Grid Systems also developed the first tablet computer, the GRiDpad, a project started and led by Jeff Hawkins, who later developed the first PalmPilot PDA and founded Palm Computing.

Portable computers in the 1980s and 90s:

2.2. Miniaturization

By the early 1990s, the size of computer hardware had reached a level that allowed radically new, more compact form factors of mobile gadgets to appear and enter the market. These primarily handheld devices were called notebook computers, “handhelds,” digital organizers, or “personal digital assistants” (PDAs). PDAs differed from laptops in that they were truly mobile, and in that users could work on them while physically moving around in space. These gadgets were not considered alternatives to desktop or laptop computers, but rather were positioned as small and lightweight add-on devices for busy businesspeople who spent part of their time away from their desktops and laptops.

The first in the line of PDAs was the Apple Newton, produced since 1992. In 1997, the first PalmPilot was introduced, and in 2000, Compaq released the iPAQ Pocket PC. While laptops were predominantly focused on portability and mobile access In addition to documents and applications available on desktop computers, PDAs have placed an added emphasis on applications and interaction styles designed specifically for wearable devices and mobile users.

The generation of mobile devices known as "handhelds" introduced a number of different interaction designs and form factors. PDAs in particular offered a combination of a relatively small touchscreen and a separate pen (or stylus) as a means of user interaction. Using the stylus, the user can interact with content directly on the screen and enter text using the on-screen keyboard or handwriting recognition software. Other innovations in interaction design included function buttons for accessing advance certain applications and functions, navigation keys for operating menus and a connector that allows “one-click” synchronization with desktop computer and charging the battery.

While the Psion PDA model series Series 3 and Series 5 reproduced a “miniature laptop” in their appearance; gadgets such as Newton, PalmPilot and iPAQ were mobile computers of a fundamentally new form factor, characterized by using most of the surface of the device as a display. In terms of interaction design, the PalmPilot in particular was the result of a careful and detailed rethinking of a new class of handheld computers: how they should look and feel, what functions they should perform and how they should perform. Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the PalmPilot, later explained how he carried around blocks of wood of various shapes and sizes until he found the perfect physical shape for his device.

Handheld computers in the 1990s-00s:

With the advent of PDAs, new categories of applications have also emerged that are designed specifically for mobile devices and users. Each microcomputer had its own operating systems optimized for their specific screen sizes and input capabilities, as well as a set of standard applications for calendars, contacts, notes, and email. These were soon complemented by a wide range of third-party applications available for purchase or, as a new option, downloadable online. By the late 1990s, application development specifically for mobile devices had become a recognized area of ​​research and development. professional activity, and in 1998, the first international workshop on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices, Mobile HCI"98, was held in Glasgow, which focused on interaction and user experience design for mobile devices, systems and services.

2.3. Connectivity

The third wave of mobile computing originates from the world of wireless telecommunications. As early as 1973, a team at Motorola led by Martin Cooper developed and patented the concept of a pocket mobile phone, which led to the creation in 1983 of the first commercially available "mobile phone" for the DynaTAC 8000X, small enough for the user to carry it with you at all times.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, mobile phones weren't really considered computing devices. However, with the introduction in 1991 of the global standard for digital mobile cellular communications (GSM, Global System for Mobile Communications), which also included technology such as service for sending and receiving short messages(Short Message Service, SMS), the complexity and functionality of mobile phones has begun to evolve rapidly. The same can be said about the adoption of mobile communication technology by large sections of the population around the world. This meant that mobile phone developers suddenly had to face the enormous challenge of designing experiences not only for making phone calls, but also for handling contacts, calendars, text messages, and Internet browsing. In the late 1990s, Nokia's design expertise undeniably dominated the field of mobile interaction design, resulting in a series of groundbreaking phones.

The major engineering challenge of the time was designing for miniature, low-resolution displays with modest data input capabilities limited to a 12-key numeric keypad along with a small number of function and navigation keys. One of the first mobile phones to directly emerge from the careful design of user interactions in the 1990s was the Nokia 3110. It introduced a simple graphical menu system and the concept of " navigation key" (Navi-key) to simplify the user experience was an interaction design that touched the hands of more than 300 million users through subsequent Nokia phone models. In 1999, the Nokia 3110's basic interaction design was expanded to include a predictive T9 texting system for SMS messages, pre-installed games, customizable ringtones and changeable display screensavers - all of which were featured in the hugely successful Nokia 3210.

Three stages of mobile interaction development: Navi-key, T9 and WAP:

In the late 1990s, the enormous and completely unpredictable use of SMS inspired developers to bring the Internet to mobile phones. This led to the development of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which made it possible to view simplified websites on small displays and laid the foundation for connecting to the Internet using mobile devices. The first mobile phone with a WAP browser was the Nokia 7110. In response to the need to scroll through long WAP pages, it also featured the first Navi-roller, which could be pressed as well as scrolled.

In an interesting example of interaction design, the 7110 also featured a spring-loaded keypad cover, the design of which was inspired by The Matrix, where the main character uses an earlier Nokia phone modified by the film's production team. to provide such functionality. “Life imitates art to a much greater extent than art imitates life,” all that remains is to quote the brilliant aphorism of Oscar Wilde. However, WAP did not live up to expectations due to slow data transfer and poor usability and was soon replaced on mobile devices by full access to the real world. World Wide Web. However, the development of mobile phones in the 1990s had a fundamental and long-lasting impact on future mobile computing.

2.4. Convergence

One of the most interesting eras of mobile computing began when Various types specialized mobile devices have begun to converge (converge) into new types of hybrid devices that combine fundamentally different form factors and interaction designs. The first stage was the emergence of “smart phones,” which combined the functionality of a PDA with the capabilities of a mobile phone. Smartphone design has involved exploration of a wide range of form factors and interaction designs, resulting in a number of innovative solutions. Many of these included designs that allowed the physical form of the device to be changed depending on what the owner intended to use it for.

Other developments, such as Blackberry smartphone models, introduced a “Wide-body mobile phone” form factor, featuring a PDA-sized display and a miniature QWERTY keyboard instead of the traditional 12-key numeric keypad. The first smartphone that, in addition to making phone calls, could also be used to maintain calendars, enter addresses, write notes, receive and send email and faxes, was the 1992 IBM Simon. It didn't have any physical buttons, just a touchscreen controlled by a finger or stylus.

Smartphones embodying different physical form factors and interaction styles:

The second phase of convergence integrated mobile phones with various multimedia functions such as digital photo taking, music playback, video recording and playback, and television and radio reception. While smartphones were winning the preferences of business people with their efficiency in working with business applications, multimedia phones attracted the attention of the general population due to the opportunities they provided for relaxation, entertainment and communication.

Converging mobile devices: camera phones, gaming phones and music player phones:

The most notable example of the convergence of the utilitarian and entertainment potential of a hybrid device was the invention of the Camera phone.

The first mobile phone with a digital camera was the Sharp J-SH04, produced since 2001. This camera phone was available for sale only in Japan through the i-mode mobile Internet service, but soon the rest of the world followed the example of Japanese developers. Two years later, more camera phones were sold than digital cameras, and in 2006, half of the world's mobile phones had a built-in camera, making Nokia the largest digital camera brand and forcing established brands like Minolta and Konica to exit the digital photography market. . By 2009, there were more than 1.9 billion camera phones in existence, and “mobile photography” was already having an enormous social impact thanks to new ways of processing and sharing images via the Internet. While early camera phones were clearly phones with built-in cameras, new interaction designs have resulted in several convergent devices that truly blur the lines between these two digital gadgets. For example, it was difficult to determine whether the Nokia N90 is a phone or a video camera?

Another convergent functionality that has become widely available on mobile phones is the ability to listen to digital music. In particular, Sony relaunched its successful "Walkman" brand from the 1980s in the form of the Sony Ericsson W600 hybrid device, released in 2005.
Then the Japanese corporation went even further, and in 2006 released the W44 multimedia phone, in which the video and audio playback function was expanded to include the ability to watch and listen digital television and radio. Convergence has also led to the creation of hybrid gaming phones - such as the Nokia N-Gage - in form factors reminiscent of handheld gaming consoles.

The main driver of the convergence trend is that the mobile user experience is proportionally related to the functional scope of interactive mobile devices and systems: “ more- it means something more" As a result, convergence has often been criticized for producing weak overall ergonomic solutions comparable to a Swiss army knife: a clunky technology with a wide range of functions, none of which are perfectly implemented when considered individually.

2.5. Divergence

In contrast to convergence, tendency divergence involves having a single function across multiple gadgets, or an “Information appliance” approach, where each piece of equipment is “designed to perform a specific activity, such as listening to music, taking photos, or writing text.” The driving force behind this line of reasoning is that having a wide range of good, specialized tools is better than having one general-purpose tool that doesn't perform one particular task. the best way. Specialized tools make it easier to optimize functionality over time and as known device usage paradigms evolve. The fundamental view of the divergence trend is that the mobile user experience is inversely proportional to the functional reach of interactive mobile devices and systems: “ less means something more».

Specialized mobile multimedia and gaming devices:

The 2000s saw the emergence of a wide variety of mobile devices designed to perform one specific task, especially music players, video players and game consoles. Of course, functionally specialized portable devices are not a completely new phenomenon, since, for example, early mobile gadgets such as pocket calculators, cell phones, GPS receivers, digital cameras, and PDAs can certainly also be classified as information devices.

However, the most interesting thing about the divergence trend of the early 2000s was that it was a deliberate choice of interaction design, rather than a technological necessity. Perhaps the most legendary example of a data device was the 2001 Apple iPod. While it was not the first portable digital music player, its user experience design, including integration with iTunes and later the iTunes Music Store, revolutionized the way music was consumed and purchasing behavior on a global scale.

Although most of the mobile phones introduced in the market in the mid-2000s provided playback of mp3 files, people still preferred to carry an additional device - iPod - to play their music as it provided a better user interface for that particular task. and this digital gadget itself has become a popular element of the fashion image. At the end of 2010, the total number of iPods sold exceeded 290 million units. Other divergent mobile devices included game consoles such as the Archos Gmini (2004), the Sony PSP video game console, and later versions of the iPod with enhanced video capabilities but the same basic design of interaction with the device.
The challenge of designing an interaction with a divergent mobile device is significantly different from the challenges of convergent interaction because in this case the functional scope is much narrower. However, since divergent devices, by definition, are typically used in conjunction with a variety of other interactive devices and systems unknown to the designer, there is a huge interaction design challenge to support tight and flexible integration and “convergence in use.”

2.6. Applications

In June 2007, Apple released the iPhone smartphone. Like many of its “contemporaries”, it was a converged mobile device that functioned as a camera phone, portable media player and Internet client with by email, web browser and high-speed connection to wireless network. However, rather than simply marking another incremental step in the evolution of converged mobile devices, the iPhone represented a major rethinking of mobile interaction design, offering users a range of exciting interaction design options.

The smartphone was equipped with a large high-resolution capacitive touch display, providing simple gesture control - with no need to use physical keys or a stylus to enter text and interact with the device. Moving away from the then-dominant navigation through cumbersome, deep hierarchical menus, the user interface became much more fluid and aesthetically pleasing, and the phone itself was extremely simple and pleasant to use. The iPhone also included a variety of built-in contextual sensors that changed the display's orientation depending on how the device was held, and switched app modes when the phone was brought close to your face during a call. The later integration of GPS and digital compass expanded the capabilities of the "context awareness" feature to allow the user to receive services based on their geographic location.

On the software side, the iPhone's web browser did allow you to access Internet content from your mobile device. iPhone owners rated their online user experience as positive, many soon described the mobile email experience via an Apple smartphone as superior to their desktop experience. Specialized applications provided direct access to watching video content from YouTube and purchasing music from the iTunes Store. Taken together, this meant that users began to use their mobile device as preferred ways to access the Internet, and not as a last resort to achieve a goal.

Due to the above benefits, by mid-2009, iPhone OS dominated total mobile web traffic globally. In addition, data and multimedia content could be easily synchronized with the user's other devices and computers through cloud services such as MobileMe, in a way never before seen in mobile interaction development, illustrating the initial steps in creating digital ecosystems mobile and desktop computer systems connected via the Internet.

The iPhone completely redefined the mobile computing device industry and set new standards for interaction design and user experience that other companies—such as Google and HTC—still struggle to match using a competing open-source mobile operating system. source code Android and its associated online application store. In many ways, the iPhone has been the device mobile experience designers have been imagining for a decade, and its massive global adoption has reached more than 120 million devices. iOS support, sold by September 2010, confirms that interaction designers were indeed correct in their assumptions about what people would want to do with mobile phones if designers could provide them with good enough interaction design and user interface. The iPhone's greatest impact, however, lay not only in the interaction design of the device itself and the high quality of its own applications. As it turned out, the main value of the interaction model offered by the iPhone was that users had easy access to an unprecedented number of applications on their mobile device.

In 2008, Apple launched an online application store that provided a mechanism through which iPhone users could easily download and pay for third-party applications directly from their mobile device. These apps cover a range of functionality, including social networking, productivity tools, personal utilities, games, navigation, and advertising for movies and TV shows.

To create this content, an iPhone software development kit (SDK) was released, offered to third-party developers under a business model in which Apple handles payments and product distribution while keeping app creators 70% of the profits. By 2012, there were more than 25 billion app installs from more than 500,000 titles available to choose from, making this collaboration model extremely profitable for both Apple and individual third-party developers of highly popular products, which in turn encourages the production of even more amount of software equipment.

A testament to the incredible scale of this business is the fact that third-party mobile software developers generated total revenue of $2 billion from store sales of their products in less than three years. Apple App. Unlike development mobile applications on the Java 2 platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) or Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW), writing software using the iPhone SDK does not require customizing applications for a wide range of different phones, which means more time can be spent spent on working on the application itself.

Additionally, unlike the typically terrible-looking user interfaces for installing software on mobile phones—especially those based on the J2ME platform—iPhone provides not only a distribution network and payment model, but also an app purchasing experience that myselfpositive in itself. Accordingly, before the appearance iPhone loading and installing software on a mobile phone or PDA was an operation that could only be done by people with a confident understanding of digital technologies, and today it is a common practice for millions of users, regardless of their age and experience with computers.

An interesting effect of the influence of the “iPhone approach” on the design of mobile interactions was that the process of improving the hardware of devices suddenly gave way in importance to improving the software available for this equipment. This is evidenced by the pace and scale of software development and updates compared to equivalent hardware efforts, representing a major shift in mobile experience design. This phenomenon indicates that a certain level of stability has been achieved in terms of physical form factors and basic data input and output capabilities, allowing developers to focus on apps and content.

Apple iPhone and iPad (2007 and 2010).

The success Apple has achieved with iPhone release, led to the third landmark endeavor in the field of mobile computing - the advent of the iPad Internet tablet, released in April 2010. Initial media reaction was mixed, but the scale of commercial distribution was unprecedented, and the iPad sold more than 2 million units within the first two months of its release date, reaching 15 million sales by the end of the year. While Microsoft, in designing the model of interaction with handheld computers and tablets for a long time, clearly reproduced the “desktop” operating system Windows-95, Apple took a radically opposite approach with the iPad tablet and based it on iPhone OS, and not on MacOSX, intended for desktops. This was a surprising move for many UX professionals, but it led to a reinterpretation and subsequent redefinition of the previously problematic category of "tablet computing" into a groundbreaking class mobile devices, which are something other than "just laptops without keyboards".

Although the iPad has been criticized for being a closed system, it strong point was about the user experience created through careful interaction design, which attracted an ever-growing community of interaction designers and app developers previously focused solely on the Phone to explore the tablet form factor. Until then, no one had been interested in creating software content for such devices - either native or downloaded from the Internet - but thanks to the iPad, tablets suddenly became one of the most interesting and promising mobile platforms on Earth, and by March 2011 there were more than 65 000 apps available for this Apple product.

2.7. Digital ecosystems

As the second decade of the new millennium progresses, the challenges associated with developing mobile computing and connectivity continue to evolve. Technical capabilities Our mobile devices have improved significantly to the point that factors such as screen area, input capabilities, processing power, network speed and battery life are far less significant sources of user problems than they were just five years ago. At the same time, UX/UI designers have also become quite skilled in designing interaction patterns and design graphical interfaces for relatively small screens and varied input capabilities of mobile devices to millions ordinary people in practice, they could download and use the applications being developed and were willing to pay for some of them. Therefore, most of the problems that mobile interaction researchers and developers faced in the past have now been successfully resolved.

However, as the history of all computer applications shows, it is unlikely that we have reached the end point of development. As in the past, the technology and interaction design we see today is the starting point for the continued evolution of the technology and interaction design of tomorrow. But what then will be the challenges and opportunities for mobile interaction design? What will be the next wave of mobile computing?
Given the widespread use of “post-desktop generation devices” and the continued interest of the general population in smartphones and tablets, it is not unreasonable to assume that personal computers on a global scale are ceasing to be the main computing platform.

Mobile devices are playing an increasingly important role and becoming more widespread. They will soon be the dominant internet access point and, combined with the rise of cloud services, will become humanity's dominant computing power. What's important here is that we're not just seeing the development of ever smarter smartphones with enhanced capabilities that allow them to imitate "miniature desktop PCs." What we're looking at is a radical evolution of a major computing platform for new applications, allowing us to do things that were previously impossible. It may well represent a true paradigm shift in the design of mobile computing and mobile interactions.

When considering current trends, it seems likely that the next wave of mobile computing and interaction design will involve creating digital ecosystems, in which mobile devices will play a central role in interacting with other ubiquitous computing resources. This challenges us to move away from viewing interactive mobile devices, systems, and services as entities that can be effectively designed and studied in isolation from the broader context of use or the built environment of which they are part. Yes, mobile computing in various form factors plays an extremely important role in most people's daily lives, but they are not the only technologies and artifacts we use at home, at work, or anywhere in between. Most people use multiple mobile devices for different purposes, but they also use many desktop or embedded computer systems at work, at home, in their cars, or in the urban environment around them. Together, these constitute a rich digital ecosystem of interactive devices, systems, and services, often referred to as ubiquitous or pervasive computing platforms, in which mobile computing is a central, but not the only, component.

The challenge of designing mobile interactions in such ubiquitous and pervasive information societies is to facilitate the creation of interactive devices, systems and services that fit well into this artificial environment of other gadgets, services, systems, and will also correspond to new rich models applications for work and leisure created by these technologies and their users. As with any type of ecosystem, understanding, creating, and maintaining digital ecosystems requires a holistic view of the integrity and sustainability of the system, rather than simply looking at each of its individual components in detail. The digital ecology wave in the evolutionary movement of mobile computing will build on the advances of previous eras in hardware miniaturization, connectivity, new form factors, input devices, interaction styles, applications, convergence, divergence and content, but it will expand opportunities to include broader contexts of use and will increase sensitivity to contextual factors influencing the user experience.

It's about about creating interactive devices, systems and services that meet the widest and most diverse aspects of human life, and at the same time they are not only useful and easy to use, but also provide pleasure in using them and adapt most naturally to constantly changing states and situations of complex and the dynamic life of modern man.

3. Designing interactions for mobile computing

The term "interaction design", developed by Bill Moggridge and Bill Verplank in the late 1980s, refers to "the design of interactive products that support the communication and interaction of people in their daily and work lives" or, more broadly, it is " designing everything that is digital and interactive" with particular attention to its subjective and qualitative aspects (as Moggridge writes in Designing Interactions, 2007). In other words, it is about creating life- and work-enhancing user experiences through the design, development, construction and implementation of interactive products, devices, systems and services.

Today, interactive products are typically computer-based, which means that interaction design is relevant to all disciplines, fields, and approaches that are associated with the research and development of human-centered computing systems. Thus, along with design practices such as graphic and industrial design, academic disciplines such as psychology and sociology, and interdisciplinary fields such as human-computer interaction and information systems, interaction design also includes technical academic disciplines in the field computer science and technology. However, interaction design differs from each of these practices, disciplines, and industries in that they have different focuses and purposes. Interaction design is about totality user experience from the use of interactive products and all the factors that can contribute to their successful creation.

“When we design computer interactive systems, we don't just design how they look, but how they behave. We design how people and technology interact." - Bill Moggridge, Interaction Design.

As American artificial intelligence researcher Terry Winograd writes in his 1996 book Bringing Design to Software, interaction design can be compared in many ways to architecture. An architect cares about people and their interactions within the building being built. For example, will the space suit the lifestyle of the family who will live in it? Are functionally connected spaces in close proximity? - And so on and so forth.

Engineers assisting an architect are concerned with the structural soundness and construction methods of a building, and knowledge drawn from other disciplines such as psychology and social science can also influence the architect's ability to create functional and livable spaces.

Just as a good architect understands other relevant disciplines, so does a good interaction designer. However, just as there is a difference between designing and building a house, there is also a difference between designing an interactive product and creating its software.

Mobile interaction design is an area of ​​interaction design specifically concerned with creating user experiences involving interactive products, devices, systems, and services that are not stationary in the sense that people can carry them or connect to them while moving through space. This has been made possible by advances in mobile computing - as described earlier - which have allowed designers and system developers to come up with interactive products that are small enough to be carried, held, or even worn. and provide sufficient computing power and networking capabilities to provide useful and engaging interactive systems and services. This list includes handheld and wearable devices, PDAs, mobile phones, smartphones, portable digital media players, handheld game consoles, etc., as well as software applications and the services that run on or can be accessed through these devices.

However, the design of mobile interactions is not only constantly simplified and stimulated by the latest advances in computer science and computer engineering. The industry is becoming increasingly cutting-edge thanks to the ability of UX designers to develop new ways to use mobile computing and incorporate new affordable mobile computing and network technologies into innovative interactive products and solutions. Accordingly, developers have long moved beyond the “mobile” hype of the late 1990s and have grown to a much more reasonable aspiration to design “mobile phones that work at the right time and know their place - those that adapt” (quoted in Matt’s book) Jones and Gary Masters, “Mobile interaction design” (Jones, Matt and Marsden, Gary, “Mobile interaction design,” 2006).

The challenges of mobile experience design have changed over time and become more complex as new technologies develop and new methods of using interactive products emerge. Early development of mobile interactions concerned the physical design of laptop computers. This approach has evolved into a focus on input devices and interaction styles suitable for handheld and mobile device use. For mobile phones, interaction design challenges have primarily been related to the shrinking physical size of devices, requiring optimized use of limited screen real estate and a standard 12-key numeric keypad for more possible ways applications. With the advent of functionally hybrid and more complex devices, the challenge for experience designers has become to develop new shapes and sizes of hardware, and to design innovative types of applications that can be accessed on cutting-edge hardware without simplifying the usage model. For the ever-expanding range of functionally specialized mobile devices such as digital cameras and media players, a major challenge in interaction design has become how to facilitate the coordination of all these devices and their content within increasingly complex ecosystems of interactive computer systems and digital data.

Today, the problems of designing mobile interactions most directly affect the development of software applications.

The physical device form factor appears to have stabilized - at least for a while - within the basic dimensions, geometric shape and connectivity introduced by the Apple iPhone in 2007, largely unchanged for several years and replicated by all major phone manufacturers. This stability has shifted attention to the free downloadable and purchased third-party applications available for these devices, in the form of relatively small programs with highly specialized functionality, developed not only by large software corporations, but also by smaller companies and even individuals, including students. By the end of 2010, more than 300,000 third-party applications were available in the Apple App Store and more than 80,000 in Google's Android Market. In less than three years, more than 10 billion applications have been downloaded for iPhone and iPod Touch. However, despite the fact that many interesting and innovative mobile applications appear daily in the online stores of Google and Apple, and their developers and interaction designers around the world are pushing the boundaries of the use of mobile computing devices, the state of the mobile application development industry can be compared to the state of Global network in the mid-1990s. There is enormous interest and excitement there, development tools are easily accessible, and there is a huge audience of potential users. Exceeding the Internet's potential in the mid-1990s, there are even well-established digital value chains and mechanisms for micropayments. But, just like the World Wide Web 15 years ago, we do not yet see or understand the significance and scope of the impact that the development of third-party applications for mobile devices will have on all aspects of our lives - both on productive activities and on idle pastimes.

3.1. The role of context

Since the early days of mobile computing and related human-computer interactions, awareness and consideration of the contexts in which interactive devices are used has been particularly important for developers when designing and constructing mobile systems, and their subsequent evaluation and study. Mobile device usage contexts have been characterized as particularly challenging - compared to, for example, traditional desktop office system usage contexts - due to their highly dynamic, complex and truly mobile character. It has also often been suggested that when using an interactive mobile computing system, other activities in the surrounding context are often more important than actually interacting with and using the system itself—walking down the street, chatting in a bar or café, visiting a patient in a hospital.

There are many different definitions of context, and debate continues about what it is in relation to mobile computing and what role it plays in its use. Early work on mobile interactions conceptualized context primarily as the location of people and objects. More recent work has expanded the concept of context to include a more global set of factors, such as the physical and social aspects of the environment. Anind Dey, in Understanding and Using Context (2001), defines context as “any information that can be used to characterize the situation in which essence(Entity). An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and the application themselves." Although this definition appears to be quite comprehensive, it does not specify what specific type of information might in practice be used to characterize such a situation.

In contrast to this concept, Albrecht Schmidt and his colleagues, in the article “There is more to context than location” (1999), put forward a model of context that includes two categories: Human factors ) and physical environment. Human factors consist of three categories: information about the user (psychological profile, emotional state, etc.), the user's social environment (presence of other people, group dynamics, etc.), and user tasks (current activities, goals, etc.). d.). The physical environment includes three categories: location (absolute and relative position, etc.), infrastructure (computing resources, etc.), and physical conditions (noise, light, etc.). This model provides a good catalog of specific contextual factors that complement broader definitions such as Anind Dey's formulation (see paragraph above).

Other works are less comprehensive in covering various contextual factors, but go into detail regarding one or more of them. The works of Philip Agre (Changing Places: Contexts of Awareness in Computing, 2001) and the already mentioned Malcolm McCullough (Digital Foundation, 2004) are of particular importance the physical context, consisting of architectural structures and elements of the built environment, such as landmarks/landmarks and travel routes. Paul Dourish's writings emphasize social context, including the interactions and behavior of people around others. In his 2004 paper, What we talk about when we talk about context, he also argues that context cannot be defined as a stable description of a situation/state, but rather is conditioned and maintained activities of people. Consequently, it is constantly revised and redefined in the course of action. These works provide us with additional contextual factors that are particularly relevant to mobile interactions in certain contexts, and the understanding that the definition of context is itself context dependent.

The mobile computing context cuts across several distinct disciplines in mobile interaction design, which has influenced the formation of methodology, technology, and theory externally and across internal disciplinary boundaries. Different disciplines have approached the problem of contexts differently, resulting in different answers.

In the field of mobile interaction research, where context plays a clear central role as the main phenomenon under scrutiny, the challenge is partly to theoretically understand what contexts are used and how they can be described, and partly to empirically study what characterizes the specific contexts of use of interest and how the phenomenon of context can be studied and analyzed in ways that generate such understanding. This has given rise to theoretical and socio-technical research based mainly on methods and theories borrowed from sociology, anthropology and phenomenology.

In systems development and mobile computing design, the task from a contextual perspective is essentially one of establishing a fit between systems and context and then structurally supporting this “equilibrium” through new or modified design/development methods. There is still relatively little publication on this topic, but a number of methodological studies are currently being conducted, mainly based on methods and theories drawn from such fields as human-computer interaction, software engineering and computer science.

In mobile device usability assessment, the challenge of context lies primarily in understanding its role in relation to the scope, richness and validity of practical findings and how usability tests can be performed in contextually real-world settings using new or modified methods and techniques. This has led to an increase in empirical research, mainly based on methods and theories related to usability engineering.

In the implementation (introduction) of mobile technologies, the problem of context is largely related to the fixation, formalization and computational modeling of this attribute “in digital”, with the understanding of these models and how to use them when constructing context-sensitive systems capable of responding to their environment. This approach has led to a wide range of technical research based mainly on methods and theories of general computer science.

In mobile user experience research, the challenge of context is to understand how diverse and dynamic user contexts influence people's experiences with technology and to describe how those experiences can be improved. These theoretical, conceptual and design-oriented studies are based on methods and theories originally drawn from a wide range of disciplines - from sociology and psychology to cognitive science, computer science, human interaction and HCI.

Similarity.

This does not mean that context is a new phenomenon that only appeared on the research agenda with the advent of mobile technologies. Context has indeed been an important concept in HCI since the second wave, or paradigm, of HCI. First Paradigm
HCI was a blend of engineering and human factors focused on optimizing human-machine compatibility. The second wave was largely based on cognitive science, focusing on the simultaneous processing of information in machines and in the human mind, but there was also a strong emphasis on the use of interactive computing systems in the context of the workplace.

However, as computer science professor Susanne Bødker noted in her 2006 article “When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges,” although much work was being done within the second HCI paradigm debates about the complex concept of context, these studies have contributed little in terms of defining it and operationalizing it in any way that is truly valuable for HCI and interaction design. In the third HCI paradigm, the focus has become even more diffuse due to the emergence of "post-desktop" ubiquitous information society, where technology permeates “from the workplace to our homes, everyday life and culture” (Bödker, “The Second Wave”). This means that context is an elementary concept that we need to not only clearly define, but also better understand in terms of its complexity, significance, and impact on user experience in order to better inform the development of new technologies.

Mobile experience design comes from the second and third waves of HCI. Interaction design grew out of the second paradigm, but the enormous impact of mobile computing on the general population subsequently became a contributing factor in the creation, power and speed of the third wave, which provided entirely new possibilities and models for the use of computer technology that we are witnessing on a planetary scale today.

3.2. Impact of research on practice

Much of the impact of mobile computing envisioned earlier will be driven by skillful and creative interaction design, conceived by enterprising developers and designers who understand how to create useful and enjoyable utilities and user experiences that meet needs, wants, and contexts of use. Unfortunately, however, the current research literature on mobile interaction design either does not provide a sufficient foundation on which developers and designers can base their innovations and interaction models, or is oversaturated with methodological guidance on how to approach the process. While there is a wealth of evidence-based literature on user interfaces and interaction design for desktop applications and websites, there is little equivalent literature on mobile interaction design.

Although the history of mobile computing spans roughly three decades, and interaction design has played an important role for about two-thirds of that history, only one noteworthy general textbook has been published on the topic, the aforementioned Jones and Marsden's Designing Mobile Interactions. And even if this book is a brilliant starting point for solving specific development problems mobile interactions, it still does not have the breadth and depth of equivalent textbooks on HCI and interaction design for the personal computer, such as The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, presented by Brenda Laurel Laurel) in 1990. Thus, the vast amount of remarkable interaction research conducted in real-world settings over the past decade and a half has missed the potential to have a large-scale, real-world impact on practice development of mobile interactions. Although this state of affairs may indicate that the field of mobile interaction design has not yet stabilized enough to develop general guidelines, principles, methods and technologies for development, it also demonstrates the opportunity and need for further work to strengthen the theoretical foundation of the field.

Some of the existing textbooks cover specific aspects of interaction design for mobile devices, systems and services, such as Any Time, Anywhere Computing: Mobile Computing Concepts and Technology (1998). .) are mainly aimed at specific and very specific classes of devices and software platforms, as well as at overcoming immediate technical limitations - the shortcomings of specific operating systems, low display resolution, low processing power, limited memory and low bandwidth. While such guidelines are undoubtedly useful when designing applications for a precisely defined platform, the weakness of this type of work is that it excessive practicality. They are extremely vulnerable to technological advances and therefore quickly become irrelevant as new devices and platforms emerge. As a result, such work has a reduced shelf life because it represents short-lived and overly specific guidelines for user interface design, tied to a specific point in time, rather than the embodiment of generally applicable and timeless principles of interaction design.

Distilling the essence of this work—higher-level challenges and solutions that apply beyond the boundaries of specific devices and platforms—would be useful for making progress in the field of mobile interaction design. But such systematic and deep work has yet to be done.

However, what appears to be a step in the right direction is the emergence of another class of textbooks on mobile interaction design, case studies of successful and influential design decisions—Information Appliances and Beyond (2000). d) Eric Bergman, “Mobile Usability: how Nokia changed the face of the mobile phone” (2003) by Christian Lindholm and “User Design Projects” iPhone interface» (iPhone User Interface Design Projects) by a team of authors. These works aim to summarize important universal lessons learned from the experiences of real mobile interaction designers. They provide the interaction design industry with methodological understanding of influential design decisions and how they emerged. A potential weakness of these works, however, is that over time they become anecdotal and difficult to relate to current design challenges. To keep knowledge current, developers and designers must provide not only case study reports, but also analysis of those cases, which elevates the level of learning from the practical and concrete to the abstract and general.

4. The path ahead: towards digital ecology

What will be our next step? As discussed earlier, the emerging trend in mobile computing is the creation of digital ecosystems in which interactive mobile systems and devices are perceived less as isolated units and more as parts of broader contexts of use or ecologies of artifacts. The last mentioned approach seems particularly interesting from the point of view of further research and development of mobile interactions.

Modern interactive mobile systems, services and devices have become an integral part of the ubiquitous computing environment. However, although their appearance, the impressions they make, and their features influence our daily lives as we coordinate use with a variety of other computing technologies, these artifacts and ecosystems are not fully understood by us or created by traditional methods of user-centered design and usability. In contrast to more traditional technological artifacts, they represent a holistic user experience of value and pleasure that requires careful attention to the variety, complexity and dynamics of their use. Consequently, we need to further develop theoretical and conceptual tools with which we can consider and describe this emerging phenomenon in a way that informs and inspires future design work.
It is proposed to use and develop the term “Digital ecology” as a way to encapsulate and label this upcoming work.

Ecology is the study of the elements that make up an ecosystem and, in general, is an understanding of the relationship between organisms and their environment. This concept is essentially holistic and interdisciplinary in nature, not representing a synonym for “environment” or “environmental activities”. Ecological thinking is not limited to biology as a discipline. For example, industrial ecology studies the material and energy flows through networks of production processes, while human ecology is an interdisciplinary field of study that provides a framework for understanding and investigating the social interactions that occur between people in a society. Likewise, it is suggested that “digital ecology” can be a useful way of describing the study of the elements that make up computing ecosystems and a method for holistically understanding the interactions between these elements and their environments.

Thus, digital ecology involves the study of interconnected digital systems (e.g., mobile and ubiquitous computing) and the processes by which these systems operate, interact, emerge, converge, and evolve. It is about understanding the functioning, use and experience of digital ecosystems and the ecologies of artifacts that surround us, as well as the design processes that create and promote these devices, technologies and built environments.

Greetings to all. The Internet is developing at an incredibly fast pace and today seeing visits to the site from mobile devices and tablets is no longer a wonder, as it was before. Mobile Internet market is gaining very fast pace and therefore website creators must adapt their websites to these devices. If you look at the latest news from the Internet industry, you can see that everything is heading towards the fact that mobile devices will take over more than half of the market in the next 5-10 years.

What am I getting at? And to the fact that you need to adapt your sites and make them convenient for viewing on mobile gadgets.

Google recently announced that it will mark sites that are friendly to smartphones and tablets. Many experts say that sites that do not meet these criteria will drop slightly in search results and perform worse. There are also suggestions that Google may make a separate search for mobile sites.

The fact that sites will be marked is 100% information, the rest of the information is only speculation.

My opinion is that it is necessary to follow all standards and make the site friendly to various kinds of mobile gadgets. We have almost finished adapting our website, there are just a few more touches left and everything will be ready. Although if you look now, you can see that the site is displayed well on smartphones and tablets. While I was doing this work, I chose for myself several online services with which you can check the site on mobile devices. I want to share them with you.

5 free online services for checking a website on mobile devices.

Let's list all the free services and then look at each in order:

1. Google Webmaster Tools()

Above I listed 5 free online services that I use myself and recommend to you. Their functionality is completely sufficient to solve any assigned tasks. Let's look at each of them in order.

1. Google Webmaster Tools (Mobile Friendly Test). Most best service because it is designed by Google. It is good because you can see not only how the site is displayed on the screen, but also get all the necessary recommendations for eliminating errors and correct display. In order to see all the errors you need to go to Google Webmaster Tools, in the “Search traffic” item, select “Ease of viewing on mobile devices”. After navigating to the page, you may see viewing issues.

Ease of viewing on mobile - Google Webmaster

After viewing the errors, you can move on to testing the site itself. Let's go to the test, enter and get all the recommendations that need to be followed. To view all recommendations, click on the button on the right Further" in point “How to make a page mobile friendly”.

2. Now let's move on to other services with which you can check the site on mobile devices.

All of them are quite easy to use, just enter the site address in the line and get all the site results on various devices. Let's take a look at the Responsinator service as an example. Go ahead and enter the address and click “ GO", I enter loleknbolek. The results have been received.

Scrolling down you can see the site in different resolutions, which is very good. All other services listed above work similarly. I use several services because it’s not always possible to get the right result with just one. When using several, the error percentage drops to zero.

Use services to check your site on mobile devices- to your health. I can only say one thing - adapt your sites for mobile, this market is growing very quickly, before you know it your competitors are already using mobile versions and gathering a large audience.