Selecting mobile phone features

The term ‘mobile phone feature’ needs to be defined since it has different meanings in different contexts. As noted in Chapter 1, in the context of this research, features are designated as any specification, component, capability, service or function that a mobile phone offers the user, except where explicitly stated otherwise.

Vendors of mobile phones tend to list items such as alarm, phone book, screensavers, etc., as phone features, while camera, Bluetooth and MMS are listed under phone capabilities [Vodacom, 2005].

Han et al. [2004] regard features as a specification of a product from a user satisfaction point of view. User satisfaction is defined as the user’s subjective feeling toward a product based on the components, their properties and the relationship between them [Han et al., 2004]. Satisfaction is a core aspect of usability [9241-11, 1998].

Advances in technology and the marketing push of features together with the user pull for new features lead to an ever-increasing number of features to choose from [Coen et al., 2002]. There are people who see

A model for representing the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety 73 mobile phones as a communication tool, claiming not to care about their appearance or symbolism [Katz & Sugiyama, 2005]. On the other hand there are the people to whom the status that design, logo, brand or new capability imparts, is crucial. ‘In order to underscore the element of prestige in a technology that is becoming omnipresent, there has been a figurative arms race towards more lavish phones’ [Katz and Sugiyama, 2005].

Despite the importance of features in marketing or purchasing a mobile phone, the consumer may not actually use all the functionality [Kiljander, 2004]. Adding design features increases the price and the complexity of using the phone [Ziefle and Bay, 2004; Rondeau, 2005].

Rogers’ [2003] innovation diffusion curve implies that products are often sold very successfully simply because they have become available. The product initially tends to have a few obviously useful and focused features. With time and increasing market saturation what tends to happen is that features are added with increasing frequency, often leading to ’feature creep‘ [Norman 1988] or ‘featuritis’ [Palen, Salzman et al. 2000].

This trade-off between adding features and maintaining usability warrants careful consideration. Norman [1998] uses Moore’s law [Moore, 1965] of substantial, sustained improvement of computing power to predict that usability will become more important than adding features. He argues for a critical point after which technical capability will become adequate and hence irrelevant, and subtler properties like usability will then become critical.

Thimbleby [2001] highlights another consequence of Moore’s law: the continuous availability of new, more featured products discourages efforts to improve the usability of products with short life cycles. This phenomenon is driven by the need to increase the demand and desirability of the product but in reality it often has the effect of reducing usability and tends to be counter-productive.

Mohageg and Bergman [2000] introduced the concept of the ‘functionality threshold’ to mark the point beyond which further functionality creates unnecessary complexity. Kiljander [2004] highlights the 80/20 rule according to which designers should identify and focus on the 20% functions that will meet 80% of user’s task needs.

Much research is directed at finding the set of key features around which the user interface should be optimised for each target group [Jarvenpaa et al., 2003; 2004]. A literature overview offered the following research directions and findings on identifying such critical mobile phone features:

• Han, Kwang et al. [2004] developed empirical models to link design features to satisfaction levels. Design properties common to ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ phones were then extracted by comparing the values of the critical design features. While the study contributes an approach to identifying desirable attributes, they studied only the physical attributes of the phone such as shape, body material, colour, etc.

• Jarvenpaa, Lang et al. [2003] looked at distinguishing ‘nice-to-have’ features from ‘must-haves’ in m-commerce by looking at how the devices affected people’s lives. They found that mobile communications have increased user’s freedom psychologically, socially and physically, but that

A model for representing the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety 74 some users are experiencing disorders of freedom which deflect from the value of mobile communication. They recommend that the industry should move beyond ‘nice-to-have’ services to ‘must-have’ services that affect people’s lives positively.

• Teo and Pok [2003a] studied the adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled phones in Singapore. They found that Internet users are generally young, male and educated. Respondents did express significant interest in using WAP-enabled mobile phones for time-sensitive activities such as buying concert/cinema tickets, receiving personalised news and appointment reminders.

• A study by Ling and Hwang [2005] considered user preference for specific features. They studied five mobile phone design features: camera, colour display, voice dialling, Internet browsing and wireless connectivity (e.g. Bluetooth, infrared, etc.). Their results indicate that by including colour display and Internet browsing features in mobile phone design, user’s overall satisfaction may significantly improve. However, users’ overall satisfaction may equally not be significantly affected by the existence of the camera, voice dialling and wireless connectivity. Redundant features place an unnecessary cognitive load on users and make the use of the phone unnecessarily complicated and cumbersome [Ling and Hwang 2005].

• Alahatuha et al. [2005] conducted a study in Finland and identified the most important new features in the private user’s sector as colour display, GPRS/EDGE, WAP, MMS and Java functionality. These features set the basis for most current mobile services and their presence has increased rapidly. Their study indicated that nearly all new mobile phones in Finnish markets had the above-mentioned features in 2004, and almost half of all mobile phones used in Finnish markets would have these features by the end of 2005 [Alahatuha et al., 2005].

• Ziefle and Bay [2004] researched different factors that contribute to mobile phones’ complexity (e.g. structure of the phone menu, function naming, appropriateness of the categorisation of menu functions or complexity of keys), but could not find which is principally harmful with regard to the ease and the success with which a phone can be used.

• Ziefle and Bay [2004] also reported that the current trend in the mobile area is in the direction of escalating complexity with regard to functional range and increased complexity related to overloaded key functionality. This trend is continuing, despite the fact that features are not the most important criteria to customers in selecting a mobile phone [Marcus, 2005b; Ziefle and Bay, 2005].

It is therefore difficult for designers to discern the right way to boost phone value. Sometimes the addition of a feature does indeed prove particularly attractive, as is the case for SMS messaging, which is clearly valued and used by mobile phone users [Gilbert and Kendall, 2003; Jenson, 2004]. On the other hand, WAP services which are technically more sophisticated than SMS have failed to attract the expected user support [Gilbert and Kendall, 2003].

Sometimes a feature results in a severe reduction in the usability of the device and proves counter- productive in terms of increasing value across all user types [Croasmun, 2004], for example the perceived

A model for representing the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety 75 need to design smaller phones. Another example is the use of video telephony. Call costs were assumed to be the reason for low usage, but a study by O'Hara et al. [2006] established that social and practical problems were the real barriers to use. The problems included concerns about privacy management in public spaces and practical problems with ambient noise and lighting in particular locations.

It has also been found that new mobile users often have unformed or uninformed ideas about mobile phone usage and find that their actual usage of the phone is different from what they initially anticipated [Palen et al., 2000]. Finally, since phones are marketed in terms of features or services, e.g. Phonescoop [2006], it is left to the buyer to match these to their anticipated and unarticulated uses of the phone. It is thus very difficult for the buyer to determine the actual value of the phone to himself or herself at the time of purchase.

This section again emphasised the need for supporting users in coping with the complexity caused by the many options offered. The approach of starting with specific design elements, features or services has an inherent limitation – the number of features increases daily and it is not practical to study all the different combinations of features to produce reliable results on what the optimal selection of features and functions is. This provides further justification for developing a model to represent mobile phone usage variety.