Adaptive Path Blog

Last weekend while waiting for a flight in Chicago O’Hare airport, I caught a BBC news segment on the devastating earthquake that struck Sichuan province in China on May 12th. The segment relayed the story of people across China using microblogging services to broadcast the tremor, update friends and family about their well-being and report stories of life on the ground. I found similar articles online and the report echoed much of how people used Twitter during the San Diego fires in October 2007.

What I find particularly inspiring about these microblogging examples is their insight into how I think we should be approaching mobile services - by focusing on human needs.

I’ve seen a fair share of mobile services – and quite honestly many make about as much sense to me as putting beans up your nose. Most are either awkward attempts at forcing PC-based services into a tiny device or so obviously designed from a market-segment perspective they completely miss the boat on serving convincing human needs. To be fair, not all mobile services fit these descriptions, but many do. Few seem to be getting it right and enjoying widespread adoption.

Traditionally, products and services designed for emergency situations have proven boons for innovation because they approach the problem from a non-market-centric mindset. Designing for emergency contexts frees us from typical drivers such as market segmentation and economics and forces a focus on human needs. Many technologies we use today such as walkie-talkies, the Internet, even the original landline telephone started out as products designed for emergency situations and found their way to the consumer space and widespread adoption.

At some point, any of us could receive a reverse 911 call and become a refugee. Natural disasters, political upheaval, or even war could force us to leave our homes, our possessions… everything we know behind. The only piece of technology we will probably be able to take with us is a mobile device. How might we want to use a mobile device to begin rebuilding our lives? What services will we need?

Photo courtesy of Qian Wang

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Experience Design, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Mobile, Service Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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