Recently we gave our results page a facelift. One of the ways we’ve made the page cleaner is to simplify – we’ve removed the source URL string from the results page.

In the past we thought it was a good idea to display it. At the time it made complete sense: it helps the user decide the relevance of the result; A video from ‘youtube.com’ may seem to be more attractive than one from ‘zooblr.com’. Many of the big players (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) display the source URL on their result pages. But the interaction within Taptu is very different - click a result in Taptu and you’ll be whizzed to a mobile-friendly Taptu Summary page. Do the same in Google Mobile and you’ll go to a transcoded source site.

People have established perceptions of how a search engine should work. When a URL is displayed beside a link, first-time users perceive it to directly link to the external site – in the old version of Taptu at least, the user’s expectation would differ to the actual behaviour.

So for now at least we’re experimenting by removing the URL. What do you think – should we continue to display it? Did you find it useful?

Yesterday, I came across an article on BBC News on the topic of mobile cyber-crime. (By “came across”, I really mean that a dozen people emailed, IM’ed or Twittered the link to me. Thanks everyone… I think?) It’s therefore my duty to write (or pontificate) on the topic.

Among viruses for mobiles what has been growing are trojans that exploit mobile payment systems such as premium rate SMS. One instructive instance of such a malicious program is known as Viver. This was discovered in May 2007 and hides its malicious code inside three fake applications. Installing any one of those bogus applications on a Symbian phone starts that handset sending costly premium rate SMS messages to an international number. Each SMS message costs about $7 (£3.50).

Now, I have a rather unforgiving attitude when I hear things like this; In the same way I rarely consider it “bad luck” when someone ends up with a computer virus, I feel it’s the device owner’s responsibility to make an educated decision on whether or not to download an application. Most people can’t be bothered to use mobile apps, so take-up of apps is low to start off with.

Secondly, it’s probably the only context where I’ll say this, but thankfully the mobile world is so fragmented that there is no one-size-fits-all virus which will infect all phone types in the same way and cause a worldwide outbreak.

To the best of my knowledge, operators use complex fraud detection systems to flag up unusual mobile use, so I’d like to think that, God forbid, there should be an epidemic of mobile viruses, these could be nipped in the bud by the operator’s watchful eye. Unfortunately, I’m not so convinced that when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and entire departments have their collective foot firmly inserted into the mouth, I should trust operators to react swiftly to the problem.

So I suppose it makes this post a plea to all mobile users to be smart about their phone use. The mobile web is an infinitely safer place than the desktop web as far as likelihood of picking up something nasty, but a little bit of common sense goes a long way no matter where you are. You wouldn’t eat an apple if it looked rotten, so why grab an application for your phone from a dodgy-looking mobile website?

Next week on Monday 28th, Mobile Monday New York has invited us to join in on a panel on the topic of “Optimizing the Mobile Experience and Increasing Visibility with Social Search and Mobile Analytics”. We’ll be in great company, on this panel moderated by Bryson Meunier of Resolution Media.

Panelists:

• Dean Collins, Amethon
• Joe Cuccinelli, Quattro Wireless
• Dan Mason, ESPN Mobile Web
• Adam Kerr, Bango
• Greg Harris, Mobilytics
• Stephen Ives, taptu
• Stan Wiechers, TigTags

For more details on the event venue, have a look at the MoMo NY post on the event. We hope to see you there!

As mobile UE designers, we face a constant challenge - how to offer our users lots of great features without creating a complex experience for them?

Within our team, we talk often about the experience we want to create - as people use our service for the first, second and future times. We work to create an experience where features are ‘revealed’ to users as they choose. We want this to happen progressively over time, so the user deepens their experience with the service under their own control.

Rather than purely taking in consideration what features to include in the service - which is what Kathy Sierra refers to in her Featuritis Curve below - we look at how the features could be unveiled so that the first visit isn’t overwhelming! On a mobile phone in particular, where we face constraints of limited screen space, network latency and navigation, it’s crucial that we fight the urge to tell a user everything at once.

Some users just want a simple search experience. Others will want to share what they find with friends by SMS. Others will want to broadcast a link to all their friends - direct to their favourite social network or microblog feed, (i.e. Twitter). We need to consider every one of those scenarios when designing.

For the first time user, our service is clearly a mobile search engine. We keep it simple and don’t offer stacks of features that will overload them either onscreen or cognitively. As users explore the service, they can discover other features - or ignore them - as they wish.

There is a concept in User Interface (UI) design called progressive disclosure, which Jakob Nielsen referred to in 2006.

A classic example of progressive disclosure in computer software is the ‘Print’ dialog box displayed when printing a document. First, you’ll see the dialog which shows only a few important options. If you want to, you can also ‘disclose’ a whole range of other settings/controls - the ‘advanced mode’ - peeling away at the layers of the onion until you get to what you need.

As a concept, progressive disclosure is similar to what we’re trying to achieve with the user experience of Taptu. We want this approach not only to work at individual widgets level, but to underpin the whole service experience as it unfolds to our users.

Have you used a service that gave you this feeling of revealing features? Or one that utterly failed at it by either overloading or hiding them too far away? We’d love to hear more about any you think do it well, or not so well!

We’re excited and honoured to have been selected by Red Herring as one of the Top 100 European Tech Startups this year.

Past winners have included some of the most successful and innovative companies out there, such as Google, YouTube, Skype and Netscape, and the Top 100 falls under the theme “Europe 08: Ahead of the Curve”, so it’s great to be included in such hot company!

Following the warm reception we received at Mobile World Congress in February, where we received the Mobile Monday Peer Award’s Community vote in the Emerging Startups category, we’re very grateful for the recognition our users and industry colleagues have given us.

The Red Herring site contains the full list of companies in the Top 100.

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Debi Jones at MobileJones and contains a bumper crop of posts from all around the world and on a variety of topics; Handset companies, former handset companies, Internet companies, new entrants and social networking giants are all involved in mashups of services.

Have a look for a good roundup of this week’s mobile news.

[Source: Basic Instructions - Thanks Gustaf!]

On Monday night, a few members of the Taptu squad attended MoMo London where Steve presented, talking about user interface design and the process through which we develop it. Some of you have asked for a copy of the slides we used, so here they are. (Tip: Set the presentation to fullscreen if any of it goes a bit fuzzy)

| View | Upload your own

For more multimedia of the evening, check out Alex Craxton’s blog for the nerdiest sword fight you’ll ever see!

This morning, The Register reports O2’s admission that its 3G customers are limited to 128Kb/s connections - with some business users being upgraded as O2 sees fit.

“384Kb/s is the technical limit of 3G technology, without resorting to HSPDA, but topping out at 128Kb/s is something of an embarrassment for a 3G network. Not that using HSDPA will help the O2 customer, depending on the “profile” O2 has decided to assign to them they might still find themselves allocated only 128Kb/sec”, says El Reg.

In non-techy terms, this means that you’re buying a 3G phone, with the expectation of fast mobile web browsing, but in fact, you’re being limited to half the potential speed you should get.

A clever fella from the 3G.co.uk forum did a speed test on the network, getting the following speeds:

GPRS 44kbit/sec
EDGE 145kbit/sec
3G 112kbit/sec
HSDPA 124kbit/sec

I tried the tests a few times and posted the fastest. The 3G and HSDPA speeds are consistently around the times posted. The EDGE speeds were more variable, from 90 to 145kbit/sec I assume depending on cell traffic at the time.

Is it just me, or are customers not getting at all what O2 is claiming. It’s supposed to be 3G, and it ain’t doing what it says on the tin!

Granted, I’ve got an iPhone, I wouldn’t get 3G speeds anyways, but I do feel sorry for the cheeky sods who’ve been giving me a tough time for having a non-3G phone. I’m currently getting better speeds than you are if you’re also on O2!

Now, immature raspberry-blowing aside, I do hope O2 get their act together and allow non-business users to experience the full potential the network has to offer. This is a stick in the wheels of the mobile web we simply do not need.

[Update: Seems like O2 are set on making an impression on their customer base today. Did you know we’re “a bunch of geeks” and would be “muppets” for considering changing networks? Well, it seems too funny to be true, but O2 PR staff may need some coaching on locking their phone before having private conversations.

Did you hear that? Yes, it’s the sound of two PR people who are going to have a very bad end of Wednesday…]

On the heels of CTIA in Las Vegas, Mobile Point View hosts the first April Carnival of the Mobilists.

Chetan Sharma writes a roundup of CTIA for those of us who didn’t attend, Michael Mace posts a rather humourous survey conducted by Rubicon Consulting on things you didn’t know about iPhone owners, and I contributed our entry on 20 resources for mobile designers and developers.

The odds are in your favour, you’ll find some great content in this week’s contributions.