While we were in Hong Kong back in November we received the absolutely fantastic news that our submission to SXSW has been accepted.

If you’re a web or interactive designer, chances are sometime very soon you will be asked to design something for a mobile phone. This presentation will introduce rapid and flexible design and prototyping techniques to help you test early, test often and create great mobile experiences.

Sketching the Mobile User Experience
Presented by Bryan Rieger, Yiibu

We’re both really excited not only to be participating in this years event, but also to be contributing to what’s shaping up to be a really interesting mobile and wireless track. Hope to see you there!

Yiibu will be visiting Hong Kong and Macau from 15-21 November to attend the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress, browse some tech malls and eat hefty quantities of fish congee and cheong fun.

Drop us a line if you’d like to meet up.

Photo: Skyseeker on Flickr, CC-BY.

Download

Size: 289kb
Compatible with the following Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices: N71*, N73*, N76, N92*, N93*, N95, N95 8GBm N81, N81 8GB, N82, E66, E51, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, 6124 Classic, 5700 XPress Music, 6110 Navigator, 6290.

*Will function (and is safe to install) on these early 3rd Edition devices but may display minor rendering issues.

• Admob metrics: This monthly report outlines the most popular devices accessing the mobile web per region (based on ads served through AdMob).
• Opera’s State of the Mobile Web: A monthly report that varies in its contents but typically includes the top web sites and handsets for BRIC countries and several top developed markets (US, UK, Germany etc.).  The September 2008 issues also includes a special report on Africa.
• DeviceAtlas: An online resource developed by dotMobi which includes device properties data for over 3600 handsets. The newest feature is a very robust set of analytics tools allowing comparison of thousands of devices by property (screen size, MIDP version etc.)
• Also quite useful is GetJar’s statistics section which includes detailed handset statisitcs by vendor, model and region (all based on traffic to GetJar itself).
• Not so free but also worth noting is Adobe’s Device Central which provides device properties for the full set of Flash Lite enabled devices along with testing and emulation tools. Note that the properties tend to be limited to those useful in Flash Lite development however this is still a great tool for testing and emulation of mobile web sites, wallpapers etc. Comes free with most versions of Adobe CS3/4.

• The Mobile Web Design Book, by Cameron Moll. A great reference!
• Mobile Web Developer’s Guide, written by Brian Fling for dotMobi.
• W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
• A Three Step Guide to Usability on the Mobile Web, from dotMobi’s mobiThinking web site.
• Web Design Checklist, from Forum Nokia.
• Mobile web technologies overview, by Forum Nokia. Short white paper providing an overview of the evolution of mobile Web browsing and how to take mobile Web users into consideration in Web design, including the potential provided by new technologies such as widgets and WidSets, and the difference between Full and Lite browsing.
• Getting Started with XHTML MP for Web Designers: Basic style sheet and XHTML advice for web designers looking to build a mobile web site. This article offers a starting point for designers and others who want to understand the basics of lightweight Web site design. From Forum Nokia.
• Mobile Ajax FAQ, by Bryan Rieger, Ajit Jaokar and Rocco Giorgi
• Mobile SEO Best Practices courtesy of dotMobi’s mobiThinking web site.
• Mobile Internet Usage and Attitudes Study courtesy of dotMobi and AKQA.
• For an overview of popular devices, browsers and usage patterns around the world, be sure consult our list of free mobile stats and analytics tools.

• Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and John Traxler. Great book with lots of case studies.
• What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee. On media and technology literacy more so than language literacy.
• Five free PDF books from the Macarthur Foundation/MIT Press:
  • Youth, Identity, and Digital Media
  • Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media
  • Digital Young: Innovation, and the Unexpected
  • The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning
• Literature Review in Mobile Technologies and Learning: white paper from the researchers at Futurelab that takes “an activity-centred perspective, considering new practices against existing theories”.
• Learning with handheld technologies by Futurelab introduces various handheld technologies within the context of potential use to extend the school curriculum and provide students with informal and collaborative learning opportunities.
• Also useful for inspiration is the long list of Futurelab projects; many of which incorporated handheld technologies.
• There are also a growing list of conferences devoted to the topic of mobile learning. Our favourites include mLearn and Handheld Learning and we would also recommend attending the free BETT expo in London which typically includes lots of educationally-themed mobile service offerings and demos from regional participants in mobile learning initiatives.

• General Usability Tips a very broad list by Forum Nokia covering everything from colour use to porting but with the aim of improving overall usability.
• Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Enterprise Applications: A very simple, 1 page checklist from Forum Nokia that could be useful for the design of most mobile applications.
• Usability Culturally Speaking: A short white paper by Forum Nokia on cultural considerations when designing for mobile devices.
• Handheld Usability by Scott Weiss. Nice little book featuring extensive guidance on conducting usability tests using both paper prototypes and prototype applications. Also includes a good overall introduction to the topic of usability and design for mobile devices.
• Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone by Christian Lindholm, Turkka Keinonen, Harri Kiljander. A classic!
• Design Sketch: The Context of Mobile Interaction: a brief white paper outlining mobile design heuristics.

• Designing Single Player Mobile Games
• Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Games: A handy checklist of design recommendations for pre, post and in-game navigation, feedback and overall experience.
• Mobile Game Playability Heuristics: Contains several lists of gameplay, mobility and multi-player heuristics along with in-depth description of each. Also includes a fine bibliography on the subject.
• Mobile Game Graphics, Overcoming the Small Screen Challenge
• Usability in Mobile Games
• S60 Usability Guidelines for J2ME Games: Large document with in depth guidelines and heuristics. (Archived Forum Nokia, direct PDF link, who knows how long this will be around
• Overview of Multiplayer Mobile Game Design: Primarily aimed at game designers, this white paper covers varied approaches to game design with a focus on networking, community features and dealing with latency.

• The Impact of Mobile Phones in Africa by the Commission for Africa.
• Mobile Phones: An Appropriate Tool For Conservation And Development? by Ken Banks and Richard Burge.
• Understanding Non-Literacy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone Communication by Jan Chipchase. One of the few articles on the subject of literacy and its impact on technology use.
• Jan Chipchase’s presentation archive: ethnograpic research on mobile phone usage around the world; primarily in emerging economies.
• Shared Phone Use by Jan Chipchase. An exploration of the importance of shared phone usage around the world.
• A nation under siege: An insight into mobile communications during the 2006 Lebanon conflict
• MENA Region: Mobility for One Language, Diverse Cultures: A survey of mobility in the Arab world.
• Nokia Quarterly “Expanding Horizons” magazine. Somewhat self promotional but typically includes interesting examples of mobile use in education and development.
• Intel research map showing “Rate of Acceleration/Deceleration of Technology Adoption, By Country” and accompanying Wired article.

• Distraction by Mark Curtis is one of our favourite books. It’s a few years old now but still incredibly relevant.
• Commissioned by Motorola, On the Mobile: The effects of mobile telephones on social and individual life by Dr. Sadie Plant is a must-read for those interested in this topic.
• Vodafone Receiver is an online magazine covering a host of topics related to being mobile.
• Mobile Life UK 2008 a study of the mobile device in day to day life with a particular focus on how it affects the lives of today’s young people.