MSearchGroove

Still reeling from a three-day conference where I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with the mobile industry’s best and brightest. The 9th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services in Singapore was chock-full of demonstrations and discussions focused on how the industry can answer the usability challenge and deliver engaging and effective mobile devices, apps and services.

An example is the mobile search interface Mobile Findex, the brainchild of Tomi Heimonen, a researcher at the Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction at the University of Tampere in Finland. (Tomi began his work with Mika Käki, who has since moved on to become a Senior Interaction Designer with Idean Enterprises, Inc. in Finland. Mika deserves a great deal of the credit for the algorithm – and so we applaud his efforts here.)

In a nutshell, Mobile Findex consists of a server-side search result categorization engine and a mobile user interface application. This interface automatically categorizes search results and presents them in a way that makes it much easier to find relevant information. (It currently works with Google – but could streamline mobile search results served up by any search provider.)

The idea is to provide users as much information as possible about the search results while reducing the amount of scrolling. To this end Mobile Findex not only “produces” a category overview; it understands context and figures out how to categorize a result based on the frequency of words and phrases that describe the result. (More accurately put: The algorithm provides a context by highlighting the frequently occurring words and phrases.) The categories help narrow down the results set and a dynamically expanding results list gives users a better idea of context (much better than just the snippets in my book). The UI consists of three views: the query view, the category view and the results view, and goes a long way toward cutting down the complexity of mobile search and vastly increases the likelihood that users will find answers and not search their search results for what matters most.

Tomi, who was kind enough to share his research and a few screenshots, tells me he is upbeat after testing Mobile Findex with users. His small test group preferred his prototype to the traditional ranked list of results search engines deliver. Category-driven search not only presented the results, it also encouraged users to explore them – a positive outcome that could also play in favor of content discovery. The next step? Tomi is mulling over “releasing Mobile Findex into the wild” as a downloadable app. I can’t wait to try it and will keep you posted on Tomi’s next move. You can be sure we’ll stay in close contact.

I also caught up with usability guru Gary Marsden, who used the event to showcase a wonderfully revolutionary concept for content sharing. He developed his prototype to help users create and share mobile media between their Bluetooth-enabled phones and public displays. The solution is perfectly suited to the developing world where people have handsets but can’t afford the airtime. As Marsden sees it, the best way to get content in the hands of users is to develop a practical and holistic approach that does not require users to download client software and does allow them to download the media they want.

He accomplishes this by a technique he calls Snap And Grab. Put simply, users can select the media they want to download by taking a picture of it and then sending it – via Bluetooth - to the public display. On arrival the image is processed and the corresponding media sent back to the user’s handset as a Bluetooth object. The media – which can be user-gen content or pre-packaged media - can include video, audio or PDFs. Likewise, users can create content that is submitted to a media package for others to download. Gary treated us to a live demo using pre-packaged media from the likes of Beyoncé, content he noted is staggeringly popular with male computer science students at the University of Capetown.

But this is not a concept that will only be used to distribute popular media to the masses (although that is no doubt top of the list). Gary told me that Snap And Grab will be used to distribute voter information, for example. I share his excitement and see the value of a public display system that allows users to download and read speeches, manifests and participate more actively in the democratic process.

Gary’s system is also being implemented in schools and as part of a skills training project. In this scenario, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) has placed Snap And Grab at the core of a program to help people advertise their skills to a larger audience (”I’m a plumber looking for work. Here’s my VCard.”)

People push their content to the board and others download it for free. The idea is simple, elegant and covers all the bases to change content creation and distribution in Africa and other emerging countries. Great work Gary!

This is just a sampling of some of the highlights - I’ll have more in my next post. Readers have told me they want shorter posts, so I’ll spread this one out…

• Posted in
• Web 2.0, Mobile Search, Mobile Content

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