Little Springs Design

over-apping

steven — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:54:54 +0000

This has been bugging me for a while, but I wasn't sure until today whether it was me: There are too many mobile apps.

I don't mean in raw numbers, cause those are great. And I'm not complaining about pointless apps, and games or gimmicks no one uses after the first day. I mean by choice between a mobile (or mobile-compliant) site and an app, there are too damned many apps. And, again percentage wise, way too damned many iPhone apps.

We've discussed this in some detail, and while I cannot seem to find a place to link to it, we've said it a lot in presentations and training we offer. There are a series of choices when going mobile, and a key one is whether you can live with a website or have to live with an app. Neither is inherently better than the other, and your choice (even if it's "both") will always have a downside.

Today, within the last hour in fact, I saw a TV ad for a new iPhone app from Nationwide Insurance.

It's not a general insurance company app (unlike the USAA mobile site Barbara brings up a lot) but seems to be entirely focused on post-accident activities. (I don't have their insurance, so cannot be sure, but Googling presents only this app). So... who will download this? This strikes me as the perfect thing to make mobile, but also the perfect thing to make a mobile website. Why?

Everyone has a car, not just iPhone users.
Everyone has accidents, not just iPhone users.
No one plans accidents, so why would they download this, even for free?
If you have the presence of mind to remember the app you downloaded three years ago, you have the presence of mind to go web browsing instead.
If you look at the helpful info on the insurance card, it could tell you to go to a website. Even if it told you to go download an app, the extra step at accident time adds a lot of friction.

Now, this doesn't mean a one-size fits all solution. A Barbara has dicussed here and elsewhere, you can offer multiple variations of that website. Hell, like I said above you can offer both an app and a site. But don't fall into any one trap to keep up with the Joneses, or because your new toy is really cool, so damn everyone else's.

In this case, it might well need a multi-faceted approach. Me? I'd be likely to add an option to the IVR when you call them that says we can let you do this through your phone, just press 7 and we'll send an SMS to the current number. Push message, click and launch a site without typing. Or, if you insist, install an app (unless you are on Verizon, et. al.). Sure, sure. Websites can't take photos generally, but I am sure if that's needed we can find a way for MMS to work.

Any way, think about your customers, or hire someone else to take a good, long, scientific and fact-based look at your customers, and decide on the right solution for them.

Little Springs Design is a user experience design consultancy focused exclusively on mobile. For information on contracting our design, strategy, training, and testing services, please contact us today.
See our scheduled training on mobile design, including convenient webinars

Copyright ©2009 Little Springs Design, Inc.

how many webs?

Barbara — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:20:52 +0000

Ahh, the "One Web" discussion, again. Don't worry, there's new content here.

First, let's address the definition problem. I've seen several floating around, including:

The link works on any device
Thematic consistency
Same technologies on every web device
Same experience on every device

As you undoubtedly know, we support the first three definitions, and disagree with the fourth. Sure, it's fine for some sites, but most certainly not for all.

mobile web

I'm talking about this now, again, both because it remains a major topic of disagreement and because of a recent Razorfish presentation. So take a few minutes to view John Pettengill's slides:

An Internet Watered Down

Is this objectionable? I think mostly not; we are looking at the slide deck, not the full presentation. Some of the weaker points were undoubtedly discussed in greater detail. It's also a well-crafted presentation.

the counter-argument

But some technologists and strategists vehemently disagree, as evidenced by the discussion about this presentation at Forum Oxford.

Their points:

This leads to fragmentation and transcoding problems. Not really. Device rendering limitations and differences leads to fragmentation.
Users expect the website to work no matter what device. Yes. Let's make that happen.
Mobile versions are not always necessary or desirable. True.
We'd have to create hundreds of different site versions: day/night, Windows/Mac, iPhone/RAZR/other phone, nationality detection, etc. This is a straw-man argument that ignores the reality of design and development.

how do you want your brand perceived?

Let's be clear: we at Little Springs Design have put together similar decks with similar messages. And we have largely similar clients, so I'm not talking to blog owners investing in my services. I'm talking to brand owners.

Razorfish's points, repackaged:

Do you want to plan how your brand is perceived on mobile, or leave it to the vagaries of mobile rendering and have it not work on some devices?
Do you want to use a technological subset of your current web experience, or do you want to leverage the capabilities of mobile for greater interactivity and value?
Design content, brand, and interaction for user context.

ماكدونالدز - arabic mcdonalds in Dallas by austinevan

palatial mcdonald's by ames sf

Let's step outside of web for a moment, and consider these questions in other environments, such as retail. Franchises want to deliver a consistent experience to their customers, and have significant process, structure, and branding rules to ensure that this happens. Despite this, successful franchises adapt their brand to fit in the current context.

Take a few minutes to go look at different McDonald's storefronts in this Flickr pool; they vary widely in their context. Even inside the menu and ordering process will vary by context. McPork, sweet tea, get your own drink, Pepsi and not Coke because of mall rules are all examples of differing experiences.

So what kind of consistency is important? McDonald's fries are as I expect them. The hamburger is how I expect it. I have an idea of what's on the menu. The Golden Arches.

What kind of consistency is important in mobile, or in web in general? Core value, primary personality. Access to my content. Access to full content.

But we should consider different contexts in our design. Is a web search while the user is lying in bed at night the same as at on the bus? Maybe we make different versions, maybe we make the same but consider both contexts in the design.

our approach

I've finally managed to consolidate our web design approach into something mostly clear:

Consider your user's needs, brand needs, user goals, contexts, target devices, technology capabilities, and so forth. Design one or more versions of your content and interaction.
Design for progressive enhancement (good experience for most devices, better for those with more capabilities) for each version.
Build a set of page tweaks (extra padding/size for touch screens, different image sizes, different layouts for horizontal screens, don't display access keys on smartphones, etc.) to automatically re-render each version appropriate to the device requesting it.

Or: Dynamic page content must go beyond picking content from a database. It must now include context intelligence, including mobility.

Anything else will result in a suboptimal experience with lower brand value for some large set of your customers. Which might be fine for many sites, but not for all. Many of the better mobile web companies out there are doing this, though perhaps just focused on versions for different device classes. How to select the number of versions and what they support is some of the tricky bit: should a widget version have the same experience or different? High end device with NFC, location, camera should be the same as desktop or different? Same as low end device, or different? We take a balanced approach.

I say that the "mobile version" should not be subset of the full version. Let's get past that.

The mobile experience should be appropriate to the mobile context. It might have fewer, more, or the same features. Let's just make sure they are the right features whether they are on the desktop or not.

“How many computers do you need?”

steven — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:08:16 +0000

After lunch at the Paleteria, and buying tomato plants, Alison and a friend decide to give up from the unpleasant Kansas City heat and spend the afternoon in the house. I am working away in the office here, and mostly ignoring them but then comes the phrase “How many computers do you need?” from Alison’s office.

We’re a little extreme, yes. There are…five working, running, computers in the house? I think. I might be missing one. Alison’s laptop, while in her office, lives on top of an /entirely other/ working laptop. So it looks pretty needlessly extravagant.

I respond, “Well I’m using three right now.” So they wander in, and I explain that I’m not cheating. The desktop is two monitors, but that’s just one computer. And really, I am hardly using it but to type, point and look at.

Aside from the stuff in the cloud, every document I am working on is coming from this window (which I can’t show you as it’s all secret client stuff), which is files off on the work laptop propped up in the living room.

Okay, that’s two. And the third is my mobile handset.

“No, that’s a phone.”

She, essentially, says that she knows it’s complex and microprocessor controlled, but it’s not a computer, it’s a phone. That’s why it’s called a /phone/.

Ah, ha. But besides the fact I have made maybe one voice call on it today (and have no wireline phone, so no cheating here), it’s a computer. I have SMS’d back and forth a dozen times today. I email or use the (well-synched) calendar alarms to keep on schedule even when I go eat lunch or have to persuade the dog to come inside because the lawn guy is here to spray.

I have a perfectly functional office suite, a PDF viewer arguably better than some desktop ones, can synch a Bluetooth keyboard for speedier input, and routinely plug it into the projector for meetings at work. Quality is mediocre, but we’re half a step from being able to dock and use it as a desktop computer replacement for every work task that is not about actually drawing interfaces.

I can even make it look exactly like the other computer here at home, and I open up the file system for the handset right on my computer desktop. I can, and do, trade files back and forth just like the laptop. And when I am playing with or testing UI, I’ll load graphics and take screenshots on and off it constantly. It actually /is/ being used essentially just like the laptop right now.

I spend a lot of time here saying crazy things like “mobiles are little computers” but amongst ourselves it’s easy. Getting called on it from others is interesting, and made me look at it somewhat differently, and maybe believe it a little more than I consciously had before. I’m not sure Alison’s friend is convinced just yet, though.

on scrolling in mobiles

Barbara — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:50:42 +0000

I frequently get asked, both by clients and by our mobile web design training attendees about how much scrolling is okay. The answer is that in general, scrolling is better than fetching another page. Consider the length of an address book.

But that answer doesn’t go far enough. There are technology limitations: some devices can only support a markup size of 10,000 bytes or so. And many pages would be perceived as being too slow if they had 30 links or 15 images.

And the user has to know that the content scrolls. Even if the device does have scrollbars, they are likely to go unnoticed as a cue. So you have to design your content for scrolling.

Scrolling Recommendations

Limit markup size to what the device can comfortably handle. This sounds obvious, but the “comfortably” bit is important, too. We’ve seen web sites that would render on a Motorola RAZR, but were so heavy that the device didn’t have any capacity to spare for moving the cursor in a timely fashion.
Ensure users have a reason to scroll. Make the top part of your page/screen compelling. Avoid closure, false bottoms. Create expectations that more is below. This is especially important on landing pages.
Use just-in-time fetching for infinite lists. For applications and browsers that support Javascript, don’t fetch a new page at all; instead add items at the bottom of the list as the user nears it. You can remove items at the top if you run out of memory. The Gmail Java ME application does this very well.
Provide accelerators for certain lists. Opera Mini uses left and right to page-scroll up and down in some modes. Openwave browsers support volume up and down for page scrolling. The iPhone Address Book provides letter shortcuts and handles the problem of the letter being too small by only using it to scroll to a spot, rather than filter. Some sites have within-page navigation.
Reduce page length by:
- Using only key navigation links (maybe just Home) rather than a full set on every page.
- Providing the first few items of a topic area, like the first 5 comments, and linking to a full list of comments
- Only putting the spacing needed for touch users on touch devices

You can also make compelling user experiences without scrolling, but they will tend to be applications and have a lot of screen states.

great thinking in mobile design

Barbara — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:50:27 +0000

I was fortunate enough to speak at, and attend, this month’s Mobile Design UK meeting. We had great presentations from Google, Nokia, Yiibu, and Little Springs Design.

Younghee Jungand Joe Macleod of Nokia spoke about mobile gesture research and design, following a process similar to our research. (I don’t have slides, but the above link has a lot of information, including a video presentation from the designers.

I like what Bryan and Stephanie are doing with their XML + Processing rapid prototyping method; we’ll be investigating it ourselves. Bryan says:

Modeling the Mobile User Experience

View more from Bryan Rieger of Yiibu.

I wanted to explain some issues about how the US differs from Europe with regards to mobile use, and look at Internet and Telco thinking and our class-based design thinking. The slides may or may not do it justice; I’ll be talking more about the latter two topics over the next couple weeks.

Symbian? What's That?

View more from barbaraballard of Little Springs Design.

Little Springs Design: Podcast #1

Chris — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:52:56 +0000

Click the image to play the clip (30 min, MP3 format)

Designer and Author Steven Hoober is interviewed by Christopher Nemeth about his new book, “Designing by Drawing: A practical guide to creating usable interactive design.” Duration: 30 minutes.

From Steven’s blog: “This is a book for designers, prospective designers or other usability professionals who find themselves designing interactive systems of any sort.” The innovative thing about Steven’s book is the “community commenting” feature of his book, that allows for readers to contribute their own annotations to the book itself, allowing the text to become a “living document” that will grow with time.

For more information on the book, to buy or to add your own comments, visit the page. It can also be purchased from Amazon.com.

humans are tool users

steven — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:50:11 +0000

Since I wanted to show off some tools, I did an experimental and sorta terrible (i.e. you can’t really see any of the stuff I am holding up) video version of this. The video is essentially exactly what I say below (though not word for word in many places), so take your pick which one you use.

Click the image to play the clip (4m 36s, .MOV)

I have been thinking a lot about touch lately, especially for mobile phone use – some of it paid and secret – and the more I think about it the more I think there are two standard beliefs that I sort of disagree with.

First, I don’t think we have touch screens yet. I think we just have “point screens.” That means these are not too far from the mouse, and are almost exactly the same as the digitizing tablet I use every day. I have a “touchscreen” laptop as well, and there’s an N800 on the desk in front of me.

Pointing, like with a mouse or digitizing pen, is just pointing. There’s no functional difference between poking at the air and sliding your finger across a smooth glass screen. Touch on the other hand gives you some sort of feedback. You can feel the presence of a button, and when you press it get a response that you’ve actually moved it.

Which brings me to the second point. Fingers are pretty good at pressing buttons, but I am not sure they are much good at anything else. But people are tool users; we don’t just point, or point more precisely with stylii and so on. We use tools to accomplish tasks. And not tools in the sense of buttons, or mobile phones. I mean we can grasp things to manipulate other things.

Your basic toolbox is a good example, but I went and grabbed by old art supply boxes, because yes I am partly talking about the fascination with the ability to draw on your iPhone. I have a degree in printmaking, so have an unusually deep set of specialized tools hanging around.

The pencil is less obvious than it seems (much less, if you are a Henry Petroski fan. It’s not just a pointer, but a mark-maker. Each one has different characteristics, and interfaces with the paper in a way that makes it possible to draw, or draw straight lines.

Similar things happen with technical pens, charcoal and paint brushes, and more so the engravers I used in a certain kind of printing plate making. The interface between the tool and the surface guides it. For pencils and gravers, this helps you make more ordered lines.

I had forgotten about some of the tools I used. Burnishers, to polish or flatten items – several of them for different surfaces and end effects. Even a feather on a stick, to spread acid on plates for a certain kind of etching (called “spit bite”).

In all cases, There is feedback, not just from the direct interface of you grasping the tool, but of the tool changing or running over the surface. Even digitizing tablets do not do this well, though they tend to have texture to get halfway there. The pen tips are replaceable like pencil leads for this exact reason.

Now I am not saying we have to stop being exciting with, say, the ability to draw on your iPhone. I just want to be very, very clear about terminology or even the assumption (all too strongly stated on fanboi forums) that we’ve reached the nirvana of interfaces. Presuming that any one solution is not just the best today, but the best that could ever be will tend to stifle creativity and development of wholly new ideas.

Things like calling pointing on glass “touch” when there is no feedback I think lead to confusion over expectations and future terminology. Now we’ll have to explain what “haptics” means, and since that will probably launch in some half-assed manner, we’ll have to come up with yet another term for “really good haptics” later on still.

That’s the future I hope for in the relatively near term, haptic feedback will let you simulate the real world environment of things to manipulate on your flat screen. After that… I have no specific idea. Lots of things are possible. And that’s a key point. We have to constantly remember to keep our minds open to what could be The Next Big Thing, and try to understand what really would be a natural UI.

For any design problem, never assume the first answer that meets a bunch of your goals is the one final solution. Look at how users actually employ their devices, and in this case consider that tool using is about grasping items, precision and specific solutions for specific tasks.

I’m excited for the future, and look forward to the next great new idea.

new markets, new inspiration

Chris — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:49:15 +0000

You’ll be seeing a new voice around here, as we have finally managed to bring on board Christopher Nemeth.

Chris comes to us from the web world, with skills from animation to sound to creative director. And, in general, he’s a great guy. We’ve got him working on a contract for the next few weeks, but you’ll start seeing his writing and other content pretty soon. In fact, we’re lining up a series of mobile design interviews that Chris is doing for us.

So be nice, and welcome aboard Chris. Or you can use his Pretentious Artist Name, Krysztof. He answers to that, as well.

So, I’m working for Little Springs Design now, and I’m surrounded by brainiacs. Seriously, some of the smartest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to be working with, and already I’m on task to start researching Africa. Africa, as in the hot topic of fast-emerging adaptation of mobile technology. Africa, as in understanding what “Designing the Mobile User Experience” is gonna flesh itself out as, as our company credo and tagline suggests.

As a designer, I love this stuff, of course; but even more so, one doesn’t design in a vacuum. Any assumptions of cultural differences, social relations, and general understanding of any and all design standards of both hardware and software will be tested at least, thrown out at most. So, time to start poking around and see what I can find – not only about the facts of the matter, but the inspiration of it as well.

Of course, part of my “experience” (the experience of discovering) is going after the ideas, current trends, observations that are already out there. There is “facts & figures” information such as Innovation Africa’s number-crunching of Africa’s phone market which shows it being the world’s fastest-growing. There’s this great blog by Dave Tait, a “design strategist interested in social and economic change through design and education” set ground-zero in Africa’s emerging market itself. We’ve got Nokia designing devices with sharing and personalization of technology in mind for the African Market, and we’ve got a great observation of how that same technology is applied in real-life through the creative lens of ICT4D members Martin Konzett and Anders Bolin in their film “Hello, Africa.”

The facts and inspiration i’ve gained the most from, however, came from reading Adaptive Path Design Researcher Natasha Sakina Alani, in her blog post about their Mobile Literacy project that focuses on “Using Respect & Instinct to Reach the Heart of Mobile Design Issues.” In her entry, Natasha recollects how she and her small team “went native” to learn, first hand, through a very close interaction with members of rural communities in India to develop an understanding of the people they were designing for, what their needs were as users, and ultimately, to enhance their lives in new ways and uplift their existences.

From Natasha’s post:

“To gather our information, we pushed out of our own comfort zones deep into theirs to get to the people that needed to be heard. Once there, our goal was to provide a safe space and to inspire confidence, allowing our participants to openly share their experiences. Conducting research with this mentality allowed us to get personal with the people we sought to understand and to hear their issues within a short time frame.”

It’s more than “developing personas,” here. She and her team got to not only talk to their inherently “foreign” customers face-to-face, but to live as they lived to really get the “experience” of being of that market. They had to develop trust amongst their host communities so that they’d be able to “actively engage with our participants and to become participants ourselves.”

It’s very inspiring. Imagine if we all had this opportunity to immerse ourselves completely in the worlds of the people we design for. Natasha suggests that we as designers should abide by the notion of “Do what feels true,” and by that to “research with boldness.” Attempting to delve into a market (such as the emerging one in Africa, for example) and to design for a culture so different than my own, I see this as an incredible challenge in the truest sense of the word; as not an impediment to my design abilities, but as something to strive and attain a higher standard of accomplishment towards.

It’s an obvious notion that any designer who is filled with the passion of their craft wants to change the world, to offer a product that enhances and enriches the lives of it’s users – but here’s where the real meat of the matter is in my mind. It’s one thing to design for an audience that can afford the high-end, luxury gadget, but it’s a much more noble goal to set one’s sights on uplifting the entire existences of those in parts of the world that are more than just “emerging markets,” but societies that crave empowerment; those who so want to be able to better themselves and their lives.

Being a new part of Little Springs Design, I’m very excited to be part of this as a designer, and even more so as a person.

carnival #175

steven — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:26:59 +0000

The Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted this week by Igor Faletski at Mobify. The Carnival is a weekly collection of the Web’s best writing on mobile and wireless, hosted and collected by a different site each week. If you are already reading our blog, you should add this collection to your subscription list as well.

As usual, you should read most or all of the linked articles, but especially my “incredible article discussing various mobile hardware form factors and their applicability in different contexts,” seeking the perfect phone form factor. And it even has pretty pictures, to make it easier to understand what I am trying to talk about.

seeking the perfect phone form factor

steven — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:08:33 +0000

Man, I gotta start coming up with my own ideas, instead of just riffing on everyone else’s. Every few years I run across someone talking about the latest trends in mobile handset design, usually seeking to codify the best parts in a manner that will lead us all to some nirvana of design, and everyone will want this. I’ve seen reviews that rip some particular design as not appealing to everyone equally.

This article from All About Symbian yesterday reminded me of all this, in their desire to find the one, true form factor that – naturally – everyone will want. I think, as usual, I reject the premise.

For some years now, Alison and I have had two vehicles.

A station wagon which is our primary people transporter. Right now it’s a 1999 Volvo V70, with an extravagant roof rack, but before that it was a series of Suzuki SUVs, which we also considered just tall wagons. It serves well as a transporter for Alison and myself and our personal effects and Atka (the dog) but can carry three more people without undue effort, lots of luggage and actual cargo from bikes to pipes if needed. Most of our friends and family think it’s a bit large and ugly, and like their cars-with-trunks instead.

And a pickup truck we use regularly because we garden, and build and generally do work requiring “dirty cargo.” The 1996 T-100 recently replaced a 1994 Chevy K-1500 we drove into the ground. We really need this vehicle. But most of our friends and family mock it as redneck and silly and large and inefficient (less so the Toyota than the Chevy, though). Until they need me to haul something, at least.

I think my mobile computing device selection is exactly similar to this.

My phone is an N95. Partly because Alison won it at a developer conference (and I, having a SIM, stole it) but I had coveted it anyway, and had an N75 before this. It’s my “everything phone” but is still fundamentally a phone. I triple tap well, but it’s not a message device. It plays music, but somewhat less excitingly than it could. And a lot of people think it’s too big and has too many features. In many, many ways, this is my station wagon phone. (Alison has a waterproof Casio, so except for the terrible Verizon software that makes the features hard to use, essentially has a Suzuki SUV phone).

My heavy lifter is a laptop. Wait, but you thought we were talking about mobile. Sure. We’re talking mobile computing. But my needs are not gaming, or email, or music or anything conveniently done on a small screen. So I don’t carry a PSP, iPod or anything else. I jump straight to a MacBook. With an aircard. it’s got wires hanging, but I am online everywhere. I have streamed internet radio when we cannot get actual radio. This is my pickup truck, that does all the heavy lifting, but still has comfortable seats and a stereo.

(I guess desktop computers would be houses in this analogy?)

This proves my point precisely. Mobile computing is variable, individualized and broader than you think. Let me break it down for you a little more. Here is how I personally categorize mobile computing devices today, and in the near future:

Sub-micro – I am thinking of stuff like the Livescribe pen and iPod Shuffles, things that have a limited or different interface more than they are just small. This is also a near-future category, as all of these are cable-synched, and I want them to be network-aware devices before I really consider them mobile devices.

Simple Keypads – 10 key phones. Simple here doesn’t mean simple devices, but simple and expected entry methods. The device as a whole can be any size and have any set of capabilities. Small devices with complex keypads (fastap, etc.) do not count.

Thumb-boards – Anything with a more complex keypad than 10-key for the primary entry method. These days, really the full QWERTY systems found on all the message phones and exemplified by the Blackberries. I would not be surprised if some other keyboard arrangement does emerge, even if only temporarily, but learning on the most compact ones (like chording systems) is likely to be a barrier to mass adoption.

Skateboards – It’s my generic term, to avoid longer or more specific labels. These are generally what you all call “touchscreens,” trending towards few or no keys. My nickname is around the shape (generally longer one way) and manner in which it’s a featureless surface. Get it? Includes mass market things like the iPhone and nerdy things like the Maemo tablets. A key distinction for use now is that I am preferring to call these “point screens” as there is NO feedback except that you touched the screen. Good haptics will allow sensing before clicking, and feedback from input. Then I’ll call them “touch screens” and a whole new set of users and applications will open up.

Media Players – Portable game consoles, media playback devices, or anything with a set of controls dedicated to the I/O of the primary, expected media. Some game players especially are network aware and are just at the edge of being important mobile communications devices. Especially as they become internet connected, I am comfortable placing digital cameras into this category. And certain industrial tools, like for measuring and test. Input devices like lenses and sensors are just as valid as buttons and touchscreens. Note the name is sorta terrible, as these can be media capture or media interaction devices just as well as players.

Ultra Mobiles – The UMPC, which I define as any truly general purpose computer whose primary input is less than a computer. Very small keyboards, pure tablets and so on. Some PDAs in the past fit into this category nicely, which amusingly confused things by using a portable OS. Except these should all be connected, all the time. The new UMPCs with WiMax are the best of these now, since WiFi is so local it’s hard to consider that really being connected

Computers – Since we’re talking mobile, I mean laptops (or notebooks, or whatever makes you happy). I do not care what they look like, but they have to have a broadly full-sized keyboard, and a high resolution pointing device. Oh, and they have to be connected. Preferably, all the time, so WiFi as we know it today doesn’t count. Think embedded LTE and WiMax.

It is important to know that these are device classes. And that users will thwart you. As I envision a near future, each of these devices is in at least some way network connected and general purpose. While the PSP is designed to be a gamer, it’s network access and ability to load software (general-purpose computer) also supports messaging

Like a lot of technology, while waiting for this to happen, it snuck up on us. How many of you use Skype when travelling? Phone calls on your laptop. Who has typed an email, or written the start of a blog post on the mobile? We all use the cameras in our phones. I don’t have enough need for music to carry an iPod, so I use the music player in my phone. I have made presentations with the video out on my phone. These are all blurring the lines between these device classes. And making detailed design decisions (slide vs. flip) much more akin to styling and paint colors than really thinking about where devices exist in the ecosystem, and how to best address user needs in their environment as a whole.