Adaptive Path Blog

There were lots of poster sessions at Ubicomp – but I have to give props to my friend, Mirjana Spasojevic of the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto for presenting my favorite demo/poster.

Nokia has developed an image recognition technology called Point and Find. Using the camera functionality on a mobile phone, Point and Find identifies objects through image recognition and provides users with associated information.

Similar in functionality to QR codes, Point and Find is a technology I believe has a lot of promise in unlocking the potential of the mobile web. It epitomizes the “Uniquely Mobile” design principle – it’s quick, easy, and can provide internet information without the hassle of text entry through the keypad and maneuvering internet content based on the PC search interaction model.

As with any emerging technology, Point and Find is a little buggy and identifying and enabling the actions people want to take after they identify and image will be essential in refining this technology. Nonetheless – it’s exciting stuff!

Scott Davidoff of CMU gave an interesting presentation today at Ubicomp on a design method for rapidly exploring application design – Speed Dating.

He and his colleagues had conducted ethnographic studies on families and their children. Like many ethnographic studies – theirs uncovered many needs. Their main finding was that managing kids activities is stressful for dual-income families.

Scott and his team were interested in how ubiquitous technologies in the home could help activity management for these families. He explained that they came up with countless concepts. How do you know which concept to make?

He continued that the common approach might be: Why not build it and see? There were several key reasons why this was not the best approach, namely:
- Timing. His team was uncomfortable deploying technologies at such an early stage in the development process.
- Immature design patterns. Unlike more established technology applications, ubiquitous computing does not have established design patterns to leverage.
- High cost of failure
- Unpredictable consequence: Scott and his team were conscious that they were introducing technologies in social contexts and didn’t know what the consequences of that might be.

So he explained that he looked in the design toolbox for some tools of the trade to help. There are a lot of tools designers use – such as sketching and prototyping – for getting the idea right. But not a lot of tools for getting the right idea.

What are the design tools to help designers find focus and strategy?

Speed Dating Design Method
Speed dating was a dating strategy born out of a need for busy professionals to optimize the time they spent… well, dating. The theory goes that if you’re going to invest an hour of your life to romance, why meet just one person… why not meet 2, 3, 4…

While arguably speed dating may not be a sound strategy for finding love, the one can’t deny the logic: experience with more people will at the very least give you a better understanding of what you want.

Scott’s speed dating concept simply replaces potential romantic partners with concepts. His theory is that multiple low-cost engagements with a wide variety of concepts allows a broader perspective to emerge.

Scott’s Speed Dating design process employs two methods
- need validation
- user enactment

Principles the method embodies are:

Ubundance brings perspective
Easier to compare something relative to other things.

Cross boundaries to find them
How do you ask users how they feel about a technology?
Easier for users to tell you about a boundary is once it’s been crossed than predict.

Need validation:
Scott then described how the next step in their process was to show the families in their study concepts like the ones shown here:

Lots of concepts…22 concepts in 2 hours!
He praised paper is a wonderful media to show concepts because it is cheap and stressed that scenarios should be engaging.

He then talked us his teams process for getting the right idea:
Observations = Kids’ activities cause stress -> Strategy: this is a problem, so fix it.

But what should they fix? What should be the focus?
Scott’s team realized that while they identified there was stress around kids activities, the team didn’t have a clear understanding of what was causing the stress.

He then explained user enactments:
Scenarios that people liked were made more tangible through low-fidelity prototypes in order to test and identify boundaries in acceptable behavior.

He showed a common scenario that had raised questions with the families from the study.

A father is suppose to pick up his kids from an activity. His car breaks down. Features of the ubiquitous home coordinate this task and finds a new person to pick up the kids.

Several families didn’t like this example – something about the home just pro-actively coordinating the activity didn’t sit well with people.

The question then became: are there levels of home’s pro-activity that are acceptable? The suggestion of the home coordinating an activity was a boundary that had been crossed – people were able to talk about what levels of pro-activity in the system were acceptable “because the crossed boundary gave them a point of reference from which they could talk about.”

He then talked about interactions with risk factors and how his handy matrix helped.

He explained how a matrix can show lessons about individual themes but can also reveal large themes.

Scott then used his study as an example to illustrate the larger themes that emerged, such as:
- Kid’s activities not “problems”
- Kid’s are in activities to learn lessons about life
- Actions have consequences
- Parents want to protect their kids
- Also want kids to learn responsibilities

Implications for design of their system were:
- can’t approach activities to “fix” problems
- systems need to help kids learn to help themselves
- kids have to learn about consequences and responsibility
- in some places, assistance in inappropriate
- parent must be part of the loop

Understanding of the right idea from his project was that they needed to change their design strategy.

Changed strategy:
Managing activity and parenting are inseparable – teach kids responsibility, function as a safety net

Tradeoffs for adding his process to your design pricess?
- It adds an extra step.

Scott then stressed that he doesn’t expect speed dating to replace prototyping. Once you’ve found your idea, it’s important to get it right.

In summary:
- Finding the right concept + strategy is important but largely unsupported
- His Speed Dating concept is a possible process that can be added to the design toolbox between sketching and prototyping
- Speed Dating is Low-cost + engaging
- It allows you to learn about unpredictable consequences
- Can help you evolve your application
- Can help you focus on what matters most.

The star of this morning’s Ubicomp’s domestic paper presentation session was given by Ja-Young Sung of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ja-Young’s paper was titled “My Roomba is Rambo”: Intimate Home Appliances. The paper was based on a research study about how people built affection and love for their Roomba, and what we can learn from the example.

I’ve seen the Roomba in action – my friend and AP colleague Kate Rutter owns one and gave me an in-home demonstration recently. They are pretty fun, and I love how this paper broke down some of the reasons why.

Ja-Young and her team conducted a study of phone and email interviews with people who own Roombas in the US, Finland, UK and Austria. They mined the data for evidence of emotional attachment.

They defined emotional attachment as something that causes changes in mood, feelings, intentions, and behaviors. Here are some of the interesting points I jotted down:

Emotional attachment to an object/technology can change people’s attitudes:
“… Roomba changed how I felt about vacuuming… it went from a chore of drudgery to one of fun.”

Emotional attachment can causes people to create life-like associations with an object/technology:
21 or 30 participants in the study gave names to their Roomba
“I can’t imagine not having him any longer. He’s my baby… I just like him, I call him roomba baby. He’s a sweetie.”

Emotional attachment can cause promotion:
People in the study wanted to demonstrate their Roomba to guests and promote the technology.
“My parents ended up buying 2… their next door neighbor bought one, and my aunt bought one…”

Emotional attachment can cause protection of an object/technology:
“When I visited my parents so they could see if they wanted one, I ended up being very protective of it since there were a lot of thing in their house that it could get choked on or stuck on.”

People change aspects of their environment to optimize the object/technology:
Many participants “Roomba-ized” their homes in order to optimize it – moving furniture, hiding cords, etc..

One participant in the study bought a new refrigerator so that the Roomba could move more easily in the kitchen.

One participant bought a new rug so that the Roomba would work.

One participant with long hair ended up cutting her hair because the Roomba was getting clogged up with her long hair.

What characteristics of the Roomba’s design caused people to have these emotional attachments and responses?

High Visibility: Users can feel the presence of the object. You can see it.

Ambiguity: Where will it go? What will it do? The uncertainty of what will a happen triggers curiosity.

Accountability: The Roomba has similar features to the Dyson vacuum cleaner in that you can see where the dirt and dust goes – which helps users see how well it works. People can appreciate and feel grateful for the technology.

Practicality: Everybody needs to clean – so the Roomba fills a very practical need. There is immediate benefit - it improves my life!

Ja-Young then posed the important question: Why do we need to care about emotional attachment when we design objects and technology?

Roomba was released in 2002 as a relatively flawed product — but as of 2006, 2 million units have been sold. People adopted it into their lives and clearly, from this study, have loyalty to the product. What the user experience and ubiquitous computing community can learn from the Roomba is this:

Emotional attachment helps people establish a long-term relationship with technology.
“I will always have one until I die. When this one breaks, I will buy a new one.”

Emotional attachment helps manage the unreliability of the design or technology. As evidenced by the Roomba — technology doesn’t have to function seamlessly or “be perfect.”

Emotional attachment can increase device adoption. Emotional attachments can cause people to change their routine to accommodate technology and it won’t be perceived as a burden. If people forge these emotional attachments, they are willing to adapt their lives to make the technology work.

What I loved most about this presentation was that it underscored the benefits of understanding the mysteries of emotion. Capturing the hearts of your users can go a long way in forgiving the imperfections of your product.

I’m in Innsbruck, Austria this week attending Ubicomp. Ubiquitous Computing refers to the trend that we as humans interact no longer with one computer at a time, but rather with a dynamic set of small networked computers, often invisible and embodied in everyday objects in the environment.

As more and more of our projects at Adaptive Path touch multiple systems, it’s clear that ubiquitous computing is relevant to user experience work. Admittedly, the lion’s share of the work is very technical in nature — but user experience and design are clearly topics of interest.

The keynote was given by Antonio Calvosa from Ferrari and his presentation stressed the importance of understanding users. He encouraged the audience to “…get your mind out of the lab — put your mind into figuring out how to communicate your technology to everyday people like your mom, or to your friend.”

He also talked about how in the end, you should always be thinking about the end user and putting people at the center of what you do. He gave an example of the Moen Revolution shower head created by Design Continuum Inc.

“Moen Revolution was an example of engineering the product based on the design. We worked in reverse to design the inner working that would improve the shower experience.” He stressed that user need drove the design and development of this product — not technology and engineering.

Wednesday’s session line up on the The Design Process seems especially interesting. I’ll be blogging about highlights this week….

Sunday I lead a workshop with my friend and former Yahoo! colleague, Mirjana Spasojevic – currently at Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto - at the Ubicomp conference in Innsbruck, Austria. We had a good turnout of people (14 total) with a mix of folk from both academic and industry backgrounds

The goal of the workshop was to harness the collective mobile wisdom of the group and create 4-6 mobile user experience design principles. We started out the day with short introductions and launched into discussing possible themes from which we could base the principles.

The themes that emerged were:
- Mobile phones and changing social rules
- Where does the data live?
- Relevance: Personalization and location-based services
- Divided attention
- New mobile interaction models

Next, we divided into groups of 3-4 people and spent the afternoon discussing the theme and shaping it into a design principle. Here are the themes and accompanying design principles. Admittedly, these discussions are reflective of some wandering conversations and may read a little “wonky” – but there is some really good stuff in there.

Theme 1: Mobile Phones and Changing Social Rules
Examples of changing social rules with regard to mobile phones:
- acceptable to talk to yourself on the street (when using a Bluetooth headset or speaker feature on the mobile phone.
- addictive “Crackberry behavior”
- always perceived to be available now that you have a mobile phone
- busy button doesn’t help – negative connotations

The lion’s share of the conversation for this group focused on the theme of expectations. Social rules are based on our understanding of expectations - expectations about ourselves and how we want people to engage with us, and expectations of others and how we want them to engage with us.

We talked about how there are different expectations for the various communication channels. When you call someone, you expect them to answer. If they don’t, you leave a voicemail and expect them to get back to you. The rules for email and text messaging are slightly different – often the social rules are personal and reflective of the relationship the sender and receiver have – or the social contract they share.

There is an interesting tension between inference and plausible deniability. When someone doesn’t answer their phone, there are a set of likely explanations: the receiver is busy, not within reach of their phone, etc…

Conflict seems to occur when expectations are not in alignment. Technology such as gps location or IM status message of “busy” adds a layer of complexity – the sender can know more about the receiver’s state and adjust their expectations accordingly.

Design Principle 1:
Design an appropriate level of ambiguity – tell users something about state, but not everything. Allow for “states” that are not fully revealed so that people can manage expectations.
- Allow people to do what they need to do to retain social contracts
- Knowing is not everything. Sometimes white lies are necessary and desired.
- Systems should support different levels of profiles and different levels of engagement to reflect the variety of expectations people have for various relationships.

Theme: Personalization and location-based services
This group’s discussion started off with a comparison of camera phones and the mobile web. Why did camera phones become a mainstream feature on phones while the mobile web continues to struggle to find a widespread audience. Sure, there are technology constraints that could be the cause. However, the group also added that we’re not that good at predicting and understanding people’s relationship to information.

How do we better predict what people will want? How do we do it without being pushy and invasive. The building blocks of these location-based services are context/location, state of mind, and user motivation. We can use the technology to predict location – but we need to find ways of understanding motivation and state of mind.

The group then discussed how these new mobile location-based services are like a new friendship – tenuous. You can’t be too pushy too soon. Then Dean interjected: Being annoying is sometimes okay… if it works. Pushy people are good at getting what hey want. If the goal is compliance in the short term, pushy can good. Point taken - i see where he is coming from, but disagree. Annoyance is yucky and should be avoided.

Next, the team discussed the idea of enhancement. We discussed the Starbuck’s – iPhone – iTunes service. interesting:
- Being in a Starbuck’s infers state of mind
- The value to the user is in the distillation of large amounts of information into a simple interaction and fulfillment of a need/desire.

Ultimately, the group felt the real value is in enhancing existing experience, not hijacking the experience.

Design Principle 2:
“I’m not in the mood”: Services should enhance the experience and provide added value. The phone can determine location, but mood and motivation are key

Mood and motivation are hard to predict. Location can give some insights into mood (Starbuck’s example). Status (location+emotion+motivation) is everything.

Theme 3: Mobile applications as interventions
This team took on the theme of attention resources. They discussed that a user’s attention is often divided when using mobile applications and services. Therefore, they framed the discussion around mobile applications as interventions.

Next, the team discussed that there are three basic phases to consider in when designing a mobile “intervention applications”:
- Sensing, (data collection and context)
- Delivery notification
- User response

When thinking about the sensing phase, consider the value of the application to a user – is there personal and/or global benefit? This may give insight into how much attention and energy the use is willing to give during this phase.

Users ultimately need to have control over the notifications. Users will ultimately want to be able to override the notifications. Deliver notification data that is contextually appropriate as possible. Consider the environmental and social contexts. Interventions should not be like your annoying friends.

Design Principle 3:
Mobility implies changing contexts and changing interruptability. Consider the three phases of mobile “intervention” applications:
- Sensing, data collection and context
- Delivery notification
- User response

Theme 4: New mobile interaction models
This team discussed the importance of effort and time when considering interaction models. Context is king; it determines cost (to use) and user value. The challenge and opportunity of mobile is that context is highly variable and hard to predict.

There was then some debate as to who ultimately bears responsibility in managing attention and intention? Producer (sender) or receiver. Notification is also a question. For example: is it socially appropriate for me to expect that you know my blog posts?

The conversation then turned to a discussion around broadcasting services such as Twitter, Radar, Flickr, microbloogging and lifecasting and the power of mobile as a capture device.

It was also discussed that it is easy in such cases to get too much information on a mobile device and the Twitter + SXSW example was cited. People signed up, chose to follow lots of friends, but then eventually turned off the service because they were inundated with “tweets” from too many friends. Was the problem a flaw in the design of Twitter or that people didn’t fundamentally understand the “rules” of social networks on mobile.

Francis felt that users should have no barrier and that ultimately the burden for providing controls should be embedded in the system. Dean disagreed (slightly) and explained that it is often difficult to predict what will happen and design appropriately.

Design Principle 4:
It’s not just about designing for a user: it’s about designing for a user embedded in a context. It’s about recognizing the different roles that people have.

Think multiple channels. The mobile platform is sms, mobile web, voice, applications. Depending on the context of your application, expectations are different.

Thanks to all the participants for a day of engaging conversation and contributions to the mobile UX principles.
Daniel Harris
Tony Lee
Fu Yu
Jaejoon Hwang
Taejin Jeong
Alexander Meschtscherjakov
Tim Sohn
Paul Aoki
Francis Li
Mattias Rost
Dean Eckles

Last March I co-lead a project that explored interaction models and interfaces for accessing the internet on a mobile phones. We conducted field research in the US and Hong Kong — 16 people total — in order to understand how people currently use their mobiles to access internet content. Analyzing the data was no small task. Having a data analysis process that I could communicate to the team and the client was critical to the success of the research and is the topic of my first AP essay: Demystifying Data Analysis.

I had the fortune of interviewing Mark Jones, who heads up IDEO’s service innovation group. Mark will be speaking at MX East (Oct 21-23, Philadelphia). Read the full interview here. (Don’t forget, when you register for MX East, use the promotional code BLOG for an additional 10% off).

Rachel Hinman [RH]: Welcome, Mark. Tell us a little about the work you are doing over at IDEO.

Mark Jones [MJ]: Thank you, Rachel. I lead the service innovation group at IDEO Chicago and right now there’s a lot of attention on service design and service innovation.

RH: That was something I was curious about: People have been doing [service design] for a long time but it’s getting more attention. Are people coming to you guys and asking for specifically for service design? Or is it something you have to explain?

MJ: People are definitely coming to us. I think that many service companies are finding that their services have been commoditized and are realizing they have to differentiate themselves. Companies are realizing that they actually have to pay attention to what their customers want. Expectations are higher and the competitive landscape is much tighter than it used to be. Companies have to innovate. And so they are coming to us.

Again, read the full interview here.

At the onset of the diabetes management project, our team had a textbook understanding of diabetes, but we had no insight into the experience of living with a chronic condition like diabetes on a daily basis. We had a hunch that, like most products and services developed today, the current products diabetics use to manage their condition are designed to accommodate technology and business constraints — with very little understanding or empathy towards the human experience.

The objective of our research was to gain that perspective, to understand and empathize with the daily experience of living with diabetes, and then design a product that met their needs and could improve their lives. Who better to talk to than diabetics themselves? We spoke with a total of ten people; a combination of diabetics living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes as well as two diabetic educators. We conducted in-depth, 2-3 hour interviews — some in-home ethnographies, some in-person interviews at local restaurants or our office. At the end of two weeks, we compiled our findings in this presentation. Three of the key findings are below.

The Emotional Impact of Numbers
We knew diet was a key concern for diabetics, but meeting with our research participants helped us understand the additional issues diabetics must consider with regards to food. When I look at an ice cream cone or a cookie, I think about how good it will taste or how I deserve it because I walked a couple blocks. Diabetics have a host of additional concerns: they must calculate the number of carbohydrates a given food contains, translate how much insulin their body will need to process the sugar, anticipate the amount of exercise they may do and adjust insulin doses accordingly. They also have to worry about how eating that ice cream cone or cookie could impact their blood sugar levels for the next 2-48 hours and consider if it’s really worth it.

In addition to carbohydrate counting, diabetics have to monitor their glucose levels. Six to 10 times a day, diabetics must test their glucose level with the goal of keeping it between 80 and 140. The emotional impact of these numbers is significant. One participant, Eileen, shared that high or low numbers can ruin her day. “I watch my diet like a hawk, I exercise, so when my numbers are high or low I get really pissed. I feel like I am doing everything I am supposed to do, so why is this happening. It can be really frustrating.” For many, the numbers can feel like a judgment: almost like a letter grade. While the numbers are a good guide, they aren’t always a reflection of how well a person is doing. Sometimes, diabetics have a bad day, despite great efforts, their body just goes high or low. Unfortunately, the emotional impact of the numbers can be enormously discouraging.

All diabetics really have to guide them is numbers — and numbers can lie. The reading from a glucose meter is the result from a single moment in time. Amy Tenderich, the woman who inspired this project, described the process of testing glucose levels in her book Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes. Amy describes the process as being akin to driving a car blindfolded and only being allowed to remove it for a few seconds every few minutes. You have a sense of where you are going, but you could get far down the wrong path and not know it. A diabetic could be crashing, but their monitor could give a ‘normal’ reading because current glucose monitors do not provide data over time.

So Much Stuff… and So Many Needles
In addition to the typical “essential stuff” that people carry around like a wallet, a cell phone and keys, diabetics have a host of additional items. Some diabetics carry around: Glucose monitor, test strips, lancet, extra lancet needles, extra insulin, back-up syringes, and glucose tablets. One participant, Alice, pointed to her big black bag and said, “Sometimes I think it would be nice to carry around a tiny stylish purse, but that just isn’t possible for me.”

Needles are also an issue. Our team was blown away by the number of times a type 1 diabetic has to contend with needles in a given day. Between monitoring blood glucose levels and injecting insulin, most type 1 diabetics have to poke themselves with a needle 10-14 times a day. When asked, all participants had a similar response: “You get used to it.” Perhaps. I couldn’t help but think that response is just something diabetics say to deal with something that is really difficult to explain to someone who isn’t diabetic. I imagine that poking yourself with a needle isn’t something you get used to, but something you adapt to in order to stay alive.

Several of the type 1 diabetics we spoke with used insulin pumps. These “pumpers” love the functionality of their pumps: the control they provide and the positive impact the devices have on managing their condition. While people love what their pumps do, they don’t love the pumps themselves. Pumps are an awkward size and people don’t always know where to put them. Most people use a pocket — which requires whatever they wear to have a pocket. Women sometimes put them in their bra but that makes it difficult to read and control discreetly. Tubing on pumps often gets caught on door handles and are awkward in social situations when the tubing is visible. Most pumps are not waterproof, which makes exercise and showering a challenge.

The most notable research finding regarding pumps was that they are just plain ugly. Pumps are big, and clunky and the form factor is not terribly human. When you think about the beautiful product design of portable consumer electronics such as mobile phones and MP3 players, it’s truly sad that diabetics have nothing more to choose from than hardware design that is reminiscent of an 80’s pager. Pumps could be better… a lot better.

Motivation and Sheer Determination
We soon realized that quite possibly the most frustrating part of living with diabetes is that there is no break from it, especially for type 1 diabetics. The analogy we came up with was that living with diabetes is like having a newborn infant for your entire life. It requires constant attention and vigilance. Keeping motivated is an essential part of living with diabetes. Nancy, a diabetic educator we spoke with wears a yellow bracelet that could easily be mistaken for a Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelet. Instead it says, “Be Your Own Cause.” Nancy has worked with thousands of diabetics in the 25 years she’s been an educator and believes that motivation and sheer determination are the main things that keeps diabetics alive and healthy. “It’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t have diabetes to understand. There’s no vacation from it, it never stops.”

Admittedly, this was emotionally challenging research for the team to conduct. At the onset, we had an understanding of diabetes, but we had no understanding of the daily experience of living with the condition. Meeting with people and hearing their stories humanized diabetes for us — it helped us understand the profound impact diabetes has on people’s daily lives and how the experience could be improved. It forced us to realize aspects of our own health that we simply take for granted. More importantly, meeting these ten diabetics and diabetic educators inspired us. The folks we met wake up everyday and deal with a condition that is frankly not very fun to live with. They do it so they can live a life with the same dreams and aspirations any person has: run a marathon, work at a job they enjoy, have a baby, see their kids grow up, or grow old with the person they love. The only difference is that diabetics take on the added responsibility of keeping themselves alive every day. Our key research finding is that diabetics are some of the bravest people out there and they deserve better tools than what they have now.

We need to talk. I’m sure you’ve been sensing my interest in you has been waning these last three weeks. I could say those silly things that people say — like it’s me, not you, or I just need some time to figure things out. The thing is, I have met someone else. It’s the new iPhone.

I’ve been avoiding this conversation because — well, things are comfortable with you. I know how you work, I can rely on you… plus, we have history. Things were blissful between us once. I remember when you first came into my life two years ago, you actually changed the way I communicated with people. Your qwerty keyboard rocked my world and made it so easy to text friends. It was like a new world opened up to me. Your bluetooth functionality was pretty great, too. And you will always remain my very first camera phone.

But, there were problems, too — so you shouldn’t be entirely surprised. Your interface has never been terribly intuitive. And it feels like we have gone round and round about the internet access issue. You’ve known that was important to me and yet things never improved.

The truth is, I’ve been using this new iPhone on and off for the last three weeks. I know… I’m a two-timer. I’ve been carrying both of you around and this is just no way to live. It’s driving me crazy. While this iPhone has some quirks, it’s honestly a pretty great phone. It’s… well.. I hate to rub it in, but it’s really hot. So, after much thought, I’ve made my choice. It’s time to sever ties with you and TMobile and tell friends and colleagues my new number. This iPhone and I deserve an honest shot — and the only way we can figure out if we’re compatible is if I say goodbye to you.

Dan’s recent blog post about Twitter has gotten me thinking about social connections and the differences in expectations on a PC vs. a mobile phone.

It seems with regard to social connections on a PC, more is better. Linked-in, Myspace, and the like — it’s a good thing to have lots of friends.

Twitter is interesting because it lives with its feet in two worlds — PC and mobile.

I see my Twitter page on my PC = good. I have friends. I’m popular and well-connected.

I monitor Twitters on my PC = fun. Interesting to know what people are up to.

I get texts on my mobile phone from all those people = bad. I am overwhelmed and annoyed with information that isn’t relevant to me.

Interesting. Why good and fun on a PC, but annoying on my mobile phone?

Here are some thoughts:

Inviting someone into your online social circle affords you both the ability to keep in touch, but also earns you a little chunk of social capital. Look — I have 200 friends! However, there’s a tax with that connection — connecting is an implicit way of saying, “You’re important and I want to know what you are up to.” But as we have all experienced, monitoring the constant IM pings, emails, blogs — and then factoring on top of that the ebb and flow of daily life — keeping up with the constant chatter and requests for attention from friends online can be overwhelming.

The constant requests for attention can be overwhelming but the PC affords us a level of control. People don’t carry their PC around with them at all times so the expectations around the requests for attention are different. I “check” my email and RSS feeds. I “log on” and “log off” to IM. I’m pretty free with giving out my email address because I have some semblance of control over responding. The PC affords us a lot of control and in some ways allows us to create an identity that reflects not necessarily who we are, but how we want to be perceived (very social and well-connected — somebody with a lot of social capital).

But the mobile phone is a different animal.

I carry it with me everywhere I go. I don’t give my mobile number out to just anybody. I answer it when it beeps and rings at me. When it beeps or rings, I expect whatever is on the other end of that request for attention to be important. And when it is not, I’m usually annoyed.

In some ways, the mobile phone keeps me honest — or at least my behavior is a more accurate reflection of the social connections that are really important to me. I don’t like getting calls or texts from people I don’t know and I don’t like getting a bunch of Twitters from people that I have a loose connection to.

Maybe that is a key difference between the PC and mobile. Honesty.

Maybe the delta between how we want to be perceived vs. who we actually are and how we live in the world is less forgiving on mobiles. Maybe mobile phones require us to be more honest about our relationships to others. Maybe on the mobile, it’s not about the number of friends, but the depth of the connections to those friends.

Or maybe I’m just bitter I don’t have more friends on Twitter.