GUEST COLUMN: Rich Discovery and “Directed” Navigation To Cool Content Can Revitalize Mobile Search, Mobile Content Retail & More
In-Brief: John Puterbaugh, Nellymoser Founder and Chief Strategist, cuts through the hype to tell us why user experience is the primary driver and inhibitor of mobile search and content discovery. This time the industry had better get it right…
The search and discovery problem-opportunity are even more critical to the growth of mobile content and services moving forward. In 2007, we saw a number of personalization and recommendation solutions developed and deployed within mobile. But what has become a bit muddled in the process of deploying and evaluating these approaches is: (1) how do you measure their success and (2) what was the context that enabled these approaches to succeed.
The jury is out on the best approach to measurement. In fact, the degree of success is often difficult to evaluate and compare in a standard way across other techniques and deployments. This confusion is compounded by the lack of standard measures of success specific to mobile.
No matter the approach, as Deepak Masand from PepsiCo observed during the same Rutberg event, the measures need to be outcome-focused (their ability to increase transactions and loyalty, for example) and not output-based (their ability to increase impressions or page views).
But, no matter how you slice it, it is user experience – context of search and discovery – that is at the core of a successful outcome. User experience is the primary driver and inhibitor of search and discovery. Thus, the particular recommender systems (elegantly described by Dr. Rick Hangartner) – be they explicit (with users rating, ranking, comparing) or implicit (technologies that monitor users’ browsing, purchasing, viewing and preference history) – are secondary. All approaches will succeed or fail on the quality of the user experience they deliver.
Little wonder that 2008 will be marked by a number of efforts aimed squarely at improving the overall user experience. These will be driven primarily by design innovation, easier and simpler discovery, and more integrated interactivity.
1) User experience remains paramount – User interface, navigation design and time to content are important, but to maximize outcomes (such as loyalty, transactions, usage), the consumer value proposition needs to fit the experience. Put another way, the existing consumer brand expectations and values need to be reinforced and differentiated via mobile. Yahoo! Go is an early indicator of the importance of offering consumers rich, interactive, network-based, on-demand mobile applications. Expect the appearance of many more mobile apps that follow this blueprint, enabling users to find, try, buy, share and enjoy more content in tune with their context.
2) Android effect – The Google Android initiative arguably goes back to user experience. After surveying the mobile landscape, Google realized that the user experience was poor overall. Naturally, before Google can aspire to leverage its search and ad platforms across mobile, it must tackle the usability barrier. Google has therefore sharpened its focus on establishing conditions for it – and others – to deliver a more compelling user experience. Google is the first out of the gates, but expect many more to follow.
3) Resurgence of applications – Users aren’t the only ones warming to dedicated mobile applications such as Google’s mobile applications (Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube) and Yahoo! Go. Following the consumers’ lead, content providers and mobile operators can also see the benefit. By moving from “closed” operating systems to operating systems with published APIs (Symbian, Google, Microsoft), applications will be able to provide a better and deeper integration with the core phone functionalities such as the address book, the calendar, the camera, GPS, and video. This interplay makes for better services all around. It also enables developers to set a new bar for rich, interactive mobile applications and services that will surpass the experience provided by the mobile browser. Watch for a much richer range of application types that goes well beyond on-device portals and widgets.
4) Improved mobile retailing – Mobile browsing may be the way users find and discover media and content, but browsing the Web or navigating scores of hierarchical menus is a poor way to sift through fast-paced content such as entertainment and multimedia which changes faster than users can keep up. Instead of the standard search text entry box – the method we use to navigate the avalanche of content available on the Internet, – I contend that some type of variant on an EPG (electronic program guide) is a much more appropriate interface. Search will certainly be a utility feature for users who need quick answers to specific questions or know precisely what piece of content they want and can find it by name. However, consumers have demonstrated on the Web that they do not always know what they want; they want to be surprised, entertained and delighted. Content discovery is a journey. On mobile, device shortcomings (small screen and tiny keypad) and the personal nature of the device create the requirement for a much more personalized and “directed navigation” discovery experience. This is the only approach that will guide users to new and popular content they might find interesting, as well as relevant recommendations suggesting other similar content they might appreciate – all the while delivering a quality end-user experience. Alltel’s launch of Celltop has demonstrated the importance of providing consumers a rich discovery and navigation environment as a means to delight the customer, drive commerce, and increase data ARPU. Expect other mobile operators and content providers to introduce approaches which combine personalization and directed navigation.
5) Richer experience through Mobile 2.0 – We will start to see true Mobile 2.0 services that provide user experiences that integrate the social Web with the core foundations of mobility – personal, local, always-on, and ever-present. Such services will be underpinned by a range of new devices expected to be on the market that will enable rich, interactive user experiences that integrate the full range of mobile consumer touch points including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, and viewing.
What is the common thread through these predictions and my personal view of where the industry is headed this year? It all goes back to user experience. Google surveyed the mobile landscape and arrived at the conclusion that the basic phone OS – and with it the range of user experiences delivered via applications and services running on mobile phones – was broken. Google’s answer is Android, Google Maps, Gmail, and a number of other applications aimed at solving the problem at the source. Likewise, Yahoo didn’t believe that the current mobile experiences offered via the mobile Internet were sufficient. It introduced Yahoo! Go, and has sharpened its focus on delivering more services and apps at the intersection of content and context. At the other end of the spectrum, the mobile storefront paradigm – one that requires users to know what they want and find it – is fatally flawed and flies in the face of everything we learned in Retail 101. Alltel picked up on this and released Celltop.
After all the hype around mobile search and content discovery, this year must mark a return to the basics. The mobile device is not a PC and never will be. The 2-4 inch window on the world it offers us underlines the importance of the user experience. It is paramount and a priori to offering effective and engaging search and discovery – and – from here on in – must sit front and center of everything we do..
For more insights from John Puterbaugh on mobile, visit his blog Mobile 2.0 and Emerging Mobile Media Services.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
[...] also honored to join John Puterbaugh, Nellymoser Founder & Chief Strategist and guest columnist on MSG, in a roundtable during CTIA focussed on Web 2.0. The event — titled Web 2.0 comes to [...]