User Experience Design

Just what is user experience design? According to interaction design organisation: (http://interaction-design.org) it define as:

User experience is a term used to describe the overall quality
of experience a person has when interacting with a product
or a system.

As the definition suggest, user experience is the characterization of what a user feels while using any product, this can extend from a car to a mobile phone to a magazine or a child’s toy. (source: http://www.paradymesolutions.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design)

For this bad design assignment, I chose the infamous mobile phone that changes some of us the way we talk in which it sprouts a community of side talking! What is this phone I am talking about? It’s none other then N-Gage, by one of the top mobile phone maker, Nokia. First, some history and specification about N-Gage.

Original N-Gage First Appearance

The original N-Gage became available from 7th October 2003.

Features of the Nokia N-Gage include:

• Large 4096 colour display (176 x 208 pixels)
• 5-way directional controller (works 8 ways in games)
• Online gaming and multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth™
• Digital music player (MP3 & AAC formats) & digital recorder
• Stereo FM radio
• Stereo headset
• Nokia Audio Manager PC software
• WAP, GPRS, HSCSD (high-speed internet), Email, XHTML browser
• Symbian operating system
• Java™
• MMS multimedia messaging & enhanced SMS
• 64 Mbyte external memory card
• USB connectivity for music download from PC
• Built-in handsfree speaker
• Calendar, contacts
• Voice dialling
• Size: 134 x 70 x 20 mm
• Weight: 137g
• Battery standby: 150 – 200 hours
• Battery talktime: 2 – 4 hours (3-6 hour game play; up to 20 hour radio play)
• Vibration alert
• Tri band

User Review/Experience

It is meant to be revolutionary phone when it first launch. Indeed no other phone is quite like a N-Gage. Besides being huge; you need 2 hands to operate, it changes the way one normally talks on a phone. There are numerous reviews about this phone, gamers would like to have this device around as it is a digital convergence that is new to the industry. It does not only serve as a game device like gameboy, it double up as a music phone too. Playing game and listening to music at the same time, besides it is actually a phone too. The screen resolution is not that great (4096 colour display) causing pixelation to occur in some games. A few  games introduced were not bad but some are a tad too expensive. It uses MMC expandable memory card that is located at such a weird place; it is beside the battery but to remove it, you have to get pass the battery first! This makes changing games or exchanging memory cards terribly troublesome. Sound play back in monotone and quality is not as great compared to other phones that period of time. The ultimate drawback of this phone from most of the reviews and from a user before (who is my friend) is the hardware design. The screen covers a fraction of the phone space. Besides, the speaker is actually located at the side of the phone! This make anyone look like holding a huge taco to the ear! Volume of the speaker is too soft too. The basic function of a mobile phone is lost. Many did not know how make a call when they first receive their N-Gage. Moreover the microphone is located at a awkward position causing the other party to strain their ear, trying to hear what the N-Gage user is saying.

(source: http://www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/nokia-n-gage.htm, http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t159366.html)

Personal Review

There are a number of bad things in this phone. I did not use it before but I do know about the side talking ‘phenomenon’, its such a huge disgrace I can’t miss it. After so many bad review about it, it is easy to pinpoint the bad points. I decided to review it for the first time in a neutral position. Actually as a concept phone, it is not bad. With games, music and a phone pack into one. First impression of the phone is that it is huge in size and rather bulky, how am I suppose to slip it into my pocket? It looks like a game device more than a phone, it needs both hands to operate which is really cumbersome. Buttons are rather organised, there are even dedicated music and radio button on the left, most buttons are except for the cancel button. It is located on the left hand side, away from keypad. This makes messaging slow. It distract users attention from right to left and back to right again. Symbian OS as its software it is pretty straight forward, much like some of Nokia phones, its relatively user-friendly. But at first I did not know how to select an icon. The 5-way navigation button is quite badly design. I did not think that the middle of the navigation button could be pressed. Why? Because it simply does not look like one. It does not look like a button that I should be pressing. Eventually I run out off buttons to press, I thought of pressing the navigation button down and viola! I got it, but it was not that easy to press it correctly, most of the time it will activate the direction buttons too.

As for the hardware, I agree with what most reviewer had said about it. The position of MMC, location of speaker and mic. As a phone it fails. So can it still be considered a mobile phone? I think it is mobile, phone…well it can be unless you don’t mind getting caught talking to a taco or something thats so huge it looks really ridiculous, who will want to own a mobile phone like this? Check out the side talking community here.

A video that tease itself by coming out with N-Gage QD. Click here.