Our expert:
Frank Hohenschuh
Director | User Experience
Tel.: 040 69 66 69 165
Mob.: 0176 15 15 40 65
Fax: 040 69 66 69 120
E-Mail: 
hohenschuh(at)sirvaluse.de
Navigation via mobile phone in everyday life
To find out if a navigation software is really useful in everyday life it is necessary to test it over several weeks. By observing usage in natural situations one can identify its ability to resolve real problems. Misunderstandings which might occur the first or second time can vanish over time while substantial usability problems remain throughout the product's whole life cycle. The latter are the ones which decrease the willingness to buy the product again, lead to rising support costs and hinder the selling of additional services.
One of our international customers asked us to answer the following questions:
- How is mobile navigation used in everyday life and how does increasing experience influence its usage?
- How does usability change over time – from the first "out of the box" experience until routined using?
- In how far does the application fulfill the users' expectations and needs?
We designed a study with 16 participants who were highly motivated to use navigation on the mobile phone but had no experience with this application yet. We invited them several times to come to our laboratories at intervals of a couple of weeks. In the meantime they were asked to keep a diary. In this way we were on the one hand able to observe under controlled circumstances how they worked on important tasks, such as planning a route and on the other hand we could find out efficiently their "real life" experiences.
We showed our client how his users got familiar to the application, what kind of new insights they gained and at which points they still found stumbling blocks - even after the use over several weeks.
As a result we provided a detailed usability list for the developers and designers as well as a presentation for the product managers and a video documentation of the most significant episodes of the tests. In this way our input addressed the mind (analysis) as well as the heart (emotion) – both aspects together helped our customer to legitimate the upcoming changes in his company.
