Usability – and how shortcomings in device/software features and functionality are impacting the mobile space at all levels – was the focus last week. Around the world (and in Prague, where Tego Interactive is headquartered) professionals and practitioners came together at World Usability Day 2009 to exchange views and seek solutions to the fundamental usability issues that threaten to stunt market growth and stifle innovation, if we ignore the work to be done.

It's Retail 101 again in mobile. We thought we saw (and learned) it all in the heyday of the mobile operator portals, but it's all coming back if we examine the recent wave of app stores. From handset makers turned content/services providers (Nokia and Apple) to platform providers (Android), and from mobile operators (Vodafone and Telefónica) to independent app emporiums (GetJar) – the excitement is all about software applications stores, but the usability is hardly a crowd-pleaser.

What needs to be done to make content findable and buyable? How (and why) should our experience on mobile complement our experience online? And where does the user fit in? It's just common sense, really. Smart retailers make shopping a no-brainer by placing hot-selling items where consumers can see them. Mobile operators and content providers, on the other hand, forced users to navigate through multiple menus and sift through catalogues to find content they like.

When Amazon kicked off the month by taking the wraps off its Amazon Mobile Payments Service, or MPS (a technology that includes a set of APIs allowing mobile developers to provide payment options to their customers within mobile websites and mobile applications), it introduced more than just another way for people to pay for stuff using their phone; it set a usability benchmark that more established players, particularly mobile operators, could find hard to beat.