DESIGNING USER EXPERIENCE

Mobiles, PDAs, Palm Tops etc. have been described as the future access devices for the Web browsing. In next few years’ time, there will be more people accessing the Internet via mobile devices than via conventional PCs.

Here is an interesting snippet. Japan had a higher number of mobile internet users than those who used PC to access the web in 2005. According to a white paper by the Japanese government, at the end of 2005, there were 69.2 million people using the Internet from mobile devices, compared to 66 million conventional PC users. The Ministry of Information and Communications’ annual “Information and Communications in Japan” white paper said, of these two user groups, 48.6 million use both a mobile device and a conventional PC. This takes Japan total Internet population to 85.3 million users – essentially two in every three people in the country.

In the recent years web is being used for more serious business applications. Mr. Avinash (Manager – Corporate Communication DLF Group) needs access to his official mails anytime and anywhere and feel mobiles and PDAs are good mediums. It is small and easy to carry. WAP sites can serve the information purpose better than conventional PC web access.

In the changing scenario can we depend on conventional ways to access web? Big Giants like Google, Yahoo! are developing their WAP strength to facilitate the users. Do companies restricting themselves to specific mediums can grow further?

– Thanks, Akash Srivastava (AS Design Consultant)