For last 5ys or so, we have seen a gradual transition of mobile popularity from a simple feature phone to a feature rich smart phone. I think, this transitions is also fueled by growth of social networking websites, collaborative gamings, music downloads, 3G/4G, LTE services, easy GPS access, etc. Whenever i see any mobile Advertisement, they show facebook and messenger chats on the mobile homescreens. The importance of handset hardware and form-factor is diminishing. Its shown as mear rectangular block with a large screen.  The software & content delivery is overtaking it. The TV and newspaper Ads dont show the mobile form factor, but the Apps Icons on the homescreen. The whole focus has shifted.

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I wanted an online tool to create simple and fast wireframe for iphone, ipad and web applications. I evaluated couple of online websites for this before subscribing a paid membership for one of them(mockflow). I know there are may desktop based wireframe tools. Most popular being MS Power Point, Word, Excel & visio for Windows and for Mac OS its keynote & Omnigraffle. There are also other regular hi-fidelity tools like Photoshop, Illustrator & Flash.

One funny thing i have noticed that some good wireframe sites (pidoco.com, hotgloo,)  are extremely expensive and not meant for individuals. They cost something like $50/month to $600/month. They only intend to sell this to corporate and not to individuals.

Here are few that i tried personally.

1. MockFlow ($60/year) - Flash based. Has desktop flash tool that sync to web tool.

This is the one I have finally subscribed. Its excellent tool with predefined templates, a free template store, share your templates, etc. It has simple drag and drop shapes and icons to your design, export as png, pdf, ppt and view site map. Best part is collaboration with comments, whiteboard, version control, etc. You can even have a co-editor.

Cons – sometime its slow and the sync dosent happen. There are still many shapes needed. eg. there is no arrow. The zoom is just upto 100%, you cannot do detail works. The UI is little clumpy. There is no toolbar to directly click on action buttons. You have to go the menu click way.

Few features are -

• Simple usability focused to make wireframing easier
• Real-Time Design Collaboration with Team Chat
• Track project activities and get updates from your team members
• Pages can be applied with multiple (recursive) templates saving time
• Invite co-editors and reviewers for your Wireframe project
• Export your Mockup to image / PDF document / PowerPoint presentation
• Layout Builder for designing background layout designs
• WhiteBoard tool for drawing doodles on mockup
• Built-in Web Snap function for capturing webpages
• Unique Expose snapshot feature
• Compare pages function for A/B design testing
• Create, Visualize and export your Wireframe’s SiteMap
• Get annotated feedback directly in the mockup
• Support for Revisions (real-time)
• Import additional Component libraries or create your own
• Never lose your work with the smart auto-recovery function
• Overlaid Graph and 960 grids are provided for layout
• You can apply your preferred Wireframe Font with one-click
• Self-serve License Manager – upgrade/downgrade team members in a click

2. Mockingbird (currently free) – no Flash., no desktop tool. Powered by Cappuccino

There is an  update on 30th July. I got a mail saying its paid now with plans from 2 projects for $9/month, 25 projects for $40/month, and unlimited at $85/month.

Its designed& developed by just two Indians working in US. Currently its free but they will start paid subscription. Its more easy and clean then mockflow.com . But its still in basic stage. No collaboration, no image uploads, no chat or comments, very limited shape library. Very slow development and updates. (I guess they are not fulltime company. Its parttime wrok). But its worth what they have done and competiting with big guys. Oh. there is no flash. Its a different framewrok like HTML5. It called as Cappuccino. Just google and check this. You can have multiple pages, add links, drag buttons and share just as link.

Cons – no collaboration team. very basic shapes, lot of limitations when designing. few export options. No options to make notes on the design. As i said, the feature addition is extremely slow.

3. iPlotz ($100 to $500/year) - Flash. Has desktop version too

This was was my favorite. But  to buy its little expensive. It has all the worlds features – many shapes, direct access tool bar, export to many formats, Project management, collaboration and chats, version control, different UI styles (mac, windows, mobile). Many templates and online snippet store.

4. Gliffy ($5 to $800/month). Little expensive.

I liked this even. It has custom shape tool. You can draw any shape but it does not have multiple pages or projects. Its only one page. Its good for charts and diagrams. I hope they extend this for real wireframe with multiple pages per project.

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With the news of withdrawal of Microsoft kin mobiles(Project Pink), for whatever rumored reasons, I am wondering if there was really a need for different UI for different user segments. As Kin phones were targeted for Teens with low cost and cloud storage and sync, the same can be achieved with just a change of skins to OS based phones. The OS based phones already offer social applications, cloud syncing, multimedia and games. Here i am talking about phones like iPhone & Android. Windows 7 is still not out in the market.

Traditionally all the hardware companies made many mobile phones , each targeted for ’so-called’ different user groups – college going, business users, multimedia users, gaming users, etc. And accordingly the price and features are added or removed from each phone to create thousands of models. Non of these phones are perfect for anyone. Forget the UI design.  Do you really need so many variety of phones from same company ? or only one phone for all, like iPhone from Apple. Yes, Apple only has one phone. 

I use iPhone for emails, photos, cloud syncing, etc. all the day.  When i go home, my 3yr daughter uses my iPhone very easily to navigate to games and play games. She even tries to download new games from apps store icon. One day I was very surprised to receive iTunes receipt for new game downloaded(by my daughter). My wife uses my phone for checking her social networking and messengers. So one single phone is satisfying needs for different users. 

I feel that, as the cost of mobile OS goes down along with the cost of hardware(memory, processor), everyone would love to have a OS based phones then these proprietary feature phones made by hardware companies. The advantage of OS phones is that you can add new applications, update the OS with new features and really customize it. Feature phones dont offer any of this. You have to just throw the phone if it becomes outdated. 

If you realize now, the word PDA has lost its value. Few years back Microsoft popularized the term PDA with windows CE phones. They differentiated themself with phones having capability to add memory, document editing and emailing. I wonder why these phones were kept purposely low multimedia standard. They would always have a bad camera and no music player or FM. Blackberry phones followed the same strategy . The reasoning was, business users are machines and they dont have human feeling to take pictures and listen to music. What a shit!. Why would you prevent anyone from doing so. Ya, just to make another category of mobile phones. Sales strategy !. Thanks to new term, Smart Phones, you now have every feature of business phones along with all multimedia. The line between business phone and multimedia phone has vanished. These new category of Smart phones satisfy every category of users. They are OS based. 

Another term that become popular is Apps Store. Ya, with iPhone having more then 100,000 apps in its Apps Store and that too mostly at $0.99, it has really become affordable for everyone. Moreover Apple made it very easy to add applications, whereas Microsoft and Nokia had terrible application download process.  Think of any idea on mobile and you will find an application in app store. The Apps store provides something for every user category. Now, where is the question of designing the whole phone for only one user group. If the OS offers flexibility to customize the layout, style and information on screen, there is no need to design for just specific category of users.  Instead, have a generic OS and allow for applications designed for specific user groups. This enables you to have only one phone and one OS satisfying every user. Slowly the control of mobile UI design is getting transfered from handset manufacturer to Apps developer company. 

With the advent of multi touch screens the phone form factor has also reduced to a mear rectangular block with glass. The industrial design for handset company is minimalistic approach. Similar to OS apps , you can have different mobile covers to customize your mobile look & personality.  Some covers look business class(leathers) and other look funny for teens (yellow covers). The product industrial design is also commoditized. Users can change the design as they want.

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Whenever I look at a great software product or a product company, I see that they were started by someone with strong engineering background. I can hardly recall if there are any product companies stated by designers. By saying designers, I mean UX designers (Lets keep Industrial designer out for time being). Ya, designers do have stared some UX service companies. What after that ?

Whenever you have a great idea, designers are constrained by their lack of software programming knowledge. They have to depend on software engineers. They cannot own the product code or check-in their idea to apps stores. Whereas software programmers can easily hire designers and still fully control the code ownership. Is it that in a software product, UX is not a core requirement ? UX can be done by anyone with good commonsense and little readings. 

Or is it that the entrepreneurial nature of UX designer is less then a engineer ? Do designers like the cozy jobs and live in their fancy world of creativity & criticism ? Are they afraid to take business challenges which programmers can take? Are designers soft hearted and shy ? I know UX designers cannot be that shy, they do have to sell their ideas like a sales persons.  As a designer you have to always convince your theory, either by backing it by design standards or usability test results. Engineering dont have to convince you their coding algorithm, even if they, you will not understand, But thats it. UX designer’s world is limited to their 1st level of colleagues (PMs, Developers, Business heads). They dont like to interact with Sales, Finance(business value), marketing, technology. They are happy to do this job and for years. They like to attend conference and publish papers. Done !. So where is the need of entrepreneurship ?

But why dont i see startups or great product companies started by designers. Would things have been different ?   

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1. Mobile advertising will surpass the decidedly outmoded Web1.0 & computer-centric advertising

- and ads will become content, almost entirely. Advertisers will, within 2-5 years, massively convert to mobile,

location-aware, targeted, opt-ed-in, social and user-distributed ‘ads’; from 1% of their their budgets to at least 1/3

of their total advertising budget. Advertising becomes ‘ContVertising’ – and Google’s revenues will be 10x of what

they are today, in 5 years, driven by mobile, and by video.

2. Tablet devices will become the way many of us will ‘read’ magazines, books, newspapers and even ’attend’ live concerts, conferences and events.

The much-speculated Apple iPad will kick this off but every major device maker will copy their new tablet within 18 months. In addition, tablets will kick off the era of mobile augmented reality. This will be a huge boon to the content industries, worldwide – but only if they can drop their mad content protection schemes, and slash the prices in return for a much larger user base.

3. Many makers of simple smart phones – probably starting with Nokia- will make their devices available

for free – but will take a small cut (similar to the current credit-cards) from all transactions that are done through the

devices, e.g. banking, small purchases, on-demand content etc. Mobile phones become wallets, banks and ATMs.

4. Quite a few mobile phones will not run on any particular networks, i.e. without SIM cards.  The

likes of Google (Nexus), and maybe Skype, LG or Amazon will offer mobile phones that will work only on Wifi /

WiMax, LTE or mashed-access networks, and will offer more or less free calls. This will finally wake up the mobile

network operators, and force them to really move up the food-chain – into content and the provision of ‘experiences’

5. Content will be bundled into mobile service contracts, starting with music, i.e. once your mobile

phone / computer is online, much of the use of the content (downloaded or streamed) will be included. Bundles and

flat-rates – many of them Advertising 2.0-supported – will become the primar

—————————

1. Things and services: The increasing connection between physical devices and online services will

drive new applications that take personal data and turn it into useful, personal, social, visual and

manipulable representations. With all of these personal activities that can be measured or

‘counted’ (Nike+, Wattson and Foursquare are prototypical) there is potential for a broad range of

personal and public services.

2. Physical diversification: There will be an enormous physical diversification of connected devices.

In many cases a connected object are no longer just ‘mobile’ but e-readers, cameras, music players,

and household appliances all the way up to cars, public spaces and buildings (where there is a good

reason to do so).

3. Daily data: As we begin to learn how to create and manipulate our online ‘data shadows’ that are

created out of this data (cf. Mike Kuniavsky), this will have significant effects on everyday life and on

our sense of value in personal information. The impact of this will be felt through changes in daily life

that try to influence the ‘things that can be counted’.

4. Pervasive privacy: Because of the increased visibility of everyday activities, places, relationships,

finances, health, etc. the issues around privacy will really come to a head. Not just the ‘big brother’

privacy issues that will be tested through the legal system, but really sticky, complex social and

personal privacy issues that are difficult for technology alone to resolve (cf. Everyware).

5. Always-on backlash: In reaction to increased, pervasive connectivity, there must be an ‘alwayson

backlash’ en masse. There will not just be niche communities choosing to ‘opt-out’, but it will

become culturally, socially necessary and desirable to be offline. The ability to gracefully disconnect and

go ‘dark’ must become a USP for many products and services.

——————————————-

1. Web of things: an average networked pet will have a voice, generating more

data traffic than the average human

2. Digital syllogomania: digital garbage collection becomes a (very) lucrative

business

3. Networked urbanism: mobile data warping scandals will make us doubt on the

ability to regulate urban dynamics with data and intelligent algorithms

4. Seamful design: opt-out mechanisms with awareness before experiencing dense

data clouds, their scattered intelligent services and their occasional hail of contextual

information.

5. The messiness and unpredictability of the world continue to seriously

challenge any technophilic dreams and their strategies of bordering

————————————-

1. Augmented reality becomes the new band wagon, with much misinformed

digital ink spilt

2. The penny starts to drop with companies that Social Marketing Intelligence is

the black gold of the 21st Century

3. Accessing multiple dynamic data bases that are constantly updated

to deliver better enabling services begins to transform the media industry – for example

creating highly accurate 3D location maps by accessing the Flickr database

4. Convergence enables the blending of reality from online and off so there is

no distinction

5. The communications revolution accelerates destroying businesses that refuse

to think the unthinkable

——————————–

1. Connection managers. They will become critical for

differentiation as devices will be able to handle massive

data speeds for microseconds and limited data speeds for

hours; from any available network.

2. User Interface. Mashup interfaces across voice, touch

and movement will create new experiences for getting data

into and controlling mobile devices. Open (environments)

will change the game.

3. Sensors. Mobile devices will have sensors added which

will enable the capture local data from temperature to noise

and from location to who else is in the room.

4. Business model. Based on game changes 2 and 3,

brands realize that more value is created from the analysis

of sensor data taken off the mobile devices than from user

voice or data usage analysis. Combining the two, sensor

and user data, it will be possible to generate new business

models and shareholder value.

5. Ownership of your data footprint. Every brand

wants to own you and your data. Users will become

discriminating about brands who deliver value to them and

these will be different from those who are in the mobile

retail value chain today. Trust and privacy will be at the

forefront of the user decision.

—————————————

1. Mobile DNA: anonymous DNA profiles for 10 euro on mobile devices will be used for hyper

targeted DNA-based services (dating, finance, education, medicine, food, sports)

2. Mobile Neurotech: using mobile devices to directly regulate and stimulate senses, thoughts,

emotions and behavior as spinoff of cosmetic neurology

3. mHealth: using mobile sensors, bodily sensors and fungible/internal sensors to boost mobile

health lifelogging and disease prevention/correction and boost scientific health research

4. Internet of Things: multimedia sensors in animals, objects, buildings and places that allow

being present of everything if needed, filtering will be biggest theme in this respect

5. Mobile Learning and Science: mobile devices will drive permanent and highly personalized

learning (a.o. DNA based) and discovery of important changes in the environment

——————————————-

1. Still to come ‘Easy Back Up & Storage’ of Address Book, mobile content

and now Apps in case phone is lost, stolen or changed

2. Emotions and social network recommendation based mobile search

3. Mobile payment and transfer (in Europe)

4. SMS based Health & Wellness monitoring and coaching

5. ‘Green Tech’ phones and in emerging countries, self-repairable ones

6. Mobile battery performance and charging solutions

—————–

1. Mobile DNA: anonymous DNA profiles for 10 euro on mobile devices will be used for hyper

targeted DNA-based services (dating, finance, education, medicine, food, sports)

2. Mobile Neurotech: using mobile devices to directly regulate and stimulate senses, thoughts,

emotions and behavior as spinoff of cosmetic neurology

3. mHealth: using mobile sensors, bodily sensors and fungible/internal sensors to boost mobile

health lifelogging and disease prevention/correction and boost scientific health research

4. Internet of Things: multimedia sensors in animals, objects, buildings and places that allow

being present of everything if needed, filtering will be biggest theme in this respect

5. Mobile Learning and Science: mobile devices will drive permanent and highly personalized

learning (a.o. DNA based) and discovery of important changes in the environment

———————

1. VoIP on cell-phones+less expensive data transfer

2. The return of curious LBS+AR applications after few years in the

“through of disillusionment”

3. Some (rich) people will pay to be disconnected

4. Non-humans (objects, animals, places) will generate more data

than humans

5. Data Structure Service: services that allow to maintain/sort/

structure all these data will gain even more weight

————–

1. All urban areas offer free (or funded by

tax payer) Wimax connectivity, meaning that most

people don’t bother with an operator relationship any

more. Landlines are gone.

2. Mobile overtakes the PC as the largest

marketing channel, offering the best results and

tracking in the history of marketing.

3. Current handheld form factors disappear,

with interfaces being via glasses or contact lenses, a

microscopic ear piece and a device which we can

envision as a ring for the finger. Three options of

viewing will be available, Real World, Digital World and a

combination of the two ie Augmented Reality. In this

Post PC Era, laptops will be quaintly old-fashioned and

unsupported commercially.

4. Mobile product and service innovation will

be greatly influenced in the next 10 years by emerging

markets, who already live in the Post PC Era today.

Education is the first vertical to be hugely impacted.

5. People still won’t pay for Digital Content.

————————–

Keyboard dimensions and screen size cease to be the primary limiting factors in

handset design as new input and display technologies free designers to radically change the

form factor of personal communication devices.

Services and content are purchased once and accessible across all devices (PC,

mobile, TV etc…) as business models start to reflect the reality of consumer value perception.

The mobile browser becomes the main applications platform.

Smarter middleware becomes essential to mediate between rapid growth in cloudbased

media storage, inherently unreliable wireless networks and a proliferation in access

devices employed by the user.

The most successful network operators will narrow their focus to the ‘3 Cs’:

customer service, coverage and capacity, stepping away from large-scale portal, application and

media development efforts.

——————–

1. Device makers will continue to drive the

mobile industry and operators will become more

traditional service providers competing on cost and

network quality.

2. Brands will use apps to drive hundreds of

millions of dollars in sales. Apps will become a

core revenue generator for businesses.

3. Location will become THE core technology

to mobile devices. It will become more ubiquitous

on the device than any other feature. nearly every user

interaction with mobile devices will become location

aware.

4. Location based advertising will explode. The

classic starbucks example will be forgotten. That starbucks

example is driven by a mindset stuck in the web – pop-up

ads, banner ads. Apps and the mobile web will be location

aware, and most mobile advertising will be informed and

targeted by location.

5. Venture capitalists will begin to make major

strategic investments in mobile app companies in

2010 (like the 2009 investments in Shazam, Smule, etc).

Big brands will acquire small apps that enhance their

product offering (eg Amazon & SnapTell)

Ted Mor

————————-

Mobile Networks: Imagine mobile networks without voice services. The switch

from 3g standards into all IP network infrastructure (4g) will turn mobile operators to broadband

providers, decrease the revenues of cable companies, increase profits of voip services and spawn a new

range of mobile services, mobile apps and even mobile devices.

Mobile Internet: Internet usage through mobile devices will overtake desktop/pc usage

based on massive adaptation of mobile internet in the developing world.

Mobile Payment: the mobile is the credit card.

Mobile Entertainment: Games, Music and Movies will find new formats on mobile

devices especially through the rise of augmented reality technology. A handful of startups in this sector

will manage to attract significant audiences.

Mobile Hub: Laptop schlepping will be over cause your phone will fulfill your computing

needs. Smartphones will become as powerful as laptops and take over the laptop and notebook market.

With an increasing number of peripherals from keyboards to displays to 3d glasses the mobile will

become the power processor of your life. Don’t loose it!

————————–

1. 5x more sensors in everyday life;

combination of wearable sensors, remote

sensors and sensors in your phone

2. Operators build and market their own

mobile devices competing with OEMs

3. Wireless charging becomes the standard

and is available everywhere

4. Your super-modular mobile phone will be

powered by a cloud based OS

5. You will travel to go to a no-airwaves

National Park; the first cellular reserve

—————————-

1. Unofficial currencies gain power.

2. Login will replace SIM cards.

3. Some nations will grant its people

the right to a cellphone.

4. Appearance of a massively

destructive synchronized mobile

virus.

5. North Korea will join the Web.

——————–

These thoughts are from Rudy De Waele at http://m-trends.org

Usability Roles, Job Title and competencies

Click the image to enlarge. Please send suggestions and corrections. If I have left any roles and titles do let me know.

We participated in this competition with our idea of healthcare portal for India - www.healthyjeevan.com We made business plans and investment proposals. Those were submitted to the Economic Times review panel. We got selected in the first round among 12000 entries.  Unfortunately we couldnt clear the 2nd round of Elevator pitch. I messed up with numbers.  But we will try again for other investors.

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