Repetitive, bored and urgent
The NYC Usability Professionals Association recently, held the "Google Presents User Experience & Mobile Apps where Google UX designer Leland Rechis described the three user states Google uses to characterize mobile device users:
- Repetitive - Users who are checking for the same piece of information over and over again, like checking the same stock quotes or weather. Google uses cookies to help cater to mobile users who check and recheck the same data points
- Bored - Users who have time on their hands. People on trains or waiting in airports or sitting in cafes. Mobile users in this behavior group look a lot more like casual Web surfers, but mobile phones don't offer the robust user input of a desktop, so the applications have to be tailored.
- Urgent - Users who have to find something specific fast, like the location of a bakery or directions to the airport. Since a lot of these questions are location-aware, Google tries to build location into the mobile versions of these queries.
What I think is interesting about this is the "bored" group. It's neat to see an articulated strategy for delivering content to people just killing time. It used to be that usability and user experience were almost exclusively focused on helping the user accomplish productive tasks. Of course that's still the case but it just goes to show how far the Internet, and by extension web human factors, has been altered by the shift to the Web being a channel for info-tainment.
via kottke (again)
