3G Telephony and User Experience
Sometime ago, I have read an article in the IHT an article about 3G telephony. There were billions dollars spent on "third - generation" licenses, in the pursuit of the "technology oriented" consumer, who was suppose to use without limits many features 3G telephony has to offer: email, Internet, video calls, music, videos, just name it. 3G were suppose to become our mobile window to the world. But the truth is that most people use their cell phones just as they did in 2000 - to make calls and send text messages. They use their phones to communicate with their peers.
So much money has been invested in promotion of the 3G services but it didn't get the people to run to stores and book plane tickets and have a video chat with mother over phone. Why? I guess it can be a good example of lack of consumers insights and understanding the relation between humans and technology. Apparently the world isn't ready to put the everyday matters and connections into a small phone. The companies missed the important part of "user experience" . 
‘When we talk about the “user experience” the main emphasis is often on an individual’s experience with a particular technology. Even with a purported social technology, for example a social networking site, we still tend to create for the individual’s interaction with the site (how does someone find their friend, how do they access this site easily from a mobile device).
However, designing for sociability means thinking about how people experience each other through the technological medium, not just thinking about how they experience the technology. The emphasis is on the human-to-human relationship, not the human-to-technology relationship. This is a crucial difference in design focus. It means designing for an experience between people.
Of course designing for an experience between people doesn’t mean ignoring the interaction with the device, but it calls for taking something else into account. That “something else” is often another person or people. How do we, as developers of communication technologies, make the communications more interesting, more exciting and more stimulating for the receiver? How do we help our users meet the needs of the other people in their social network? How do we create a shared experience that is equally compelling for all participating parties? When we begin to think like this, we truly start to think of designing social software, social applications, social media.’
Crysta Metcalf of Motorola (Found at experientia)
Tags: 3G, Mobile Phones, Consumers
