In this age of gadgets and technology, it’s easy to waste hours in front of a computer looking at the endless pit of email, news and entertainment stuff that’s provided to us. The best way to get away from it used to be to go away on holiday where the little beach resort (fingers crossed) wouldn’t have web access, forcing us to live without email for some time. But no-thanks to phones getting smarter every year, that much deserved holiday sees email, SMS and the web sneak into our luggage.
We all treat holidays differently; Before departing on his summer break, Dr Jakob Nielsen, an IT usability expert, said: “I will be completely out of contact for two full weeks while I am in Africa. There is no internet on the Serengeti. There may be mobile phone access around the lodges, but probably not on the plains themselves.” Mr Nielsen says he has sworn off e-mail for a fortnight and thinks his staff can handle things without him. “In fact, any executive who thinks otherwise has really failed one of his or her most important duties.” (Financial Times)
I’m a mobile addict, there’s no denying it. I’ve been given the evil eye by my husband more than once for taking a peek at an incoming SMS or my Twitter feed when I should have been spending precious time with friends and family.
But here’s my secret: I absolutely love the forced break from it I get when we go on holiday away where you have to hang out the window of the highest bedroom to make a phone call. It takes a few days to slip into the right frame of mind where I realise it’s good and healthy to take a break, and that the world won’t stop spinning while I’m gone. That’s when bliss begins. No calls, no worries, just my feet in the sand and a cocktail in hand!
To each their own, however; other people prefer to stay in constant contact in order to have less to worry about when they return from holiday, reading email on their phone, finding a watering hole with wifi, or checking in to the office every couple of days.
What’s your take? Throw the phone in the back of the wardrobe until your return or stay on top of the office gossip daily?
In September, Matt Davies, from our User Experience team, will be presenting at MobileHCI08, a conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services in Amsterdam.
MobileHCI08 is an annual conference, held on 2-5 September, that brings together industry and academic specialists in mobile user experience from all over the world. Matt’s talk will be called ‘Designing a new mobile search service - a user-centred approach’. The talk will focus on how we design for our users. Matt will look at personas, prototyping and how we do usability tests of our service and designs with target users.
Well, I’ve certainly seen enough. They’re all the same. Fan boy gets excited, unboxes new gadget in a poorly lit video, with oooh’s and aaah’s at every layer of paper peeled off. Give them half a chance and they’ll get excited over the owner manual!
However, in this case, I’m sure there’s something different about this Samsung Omnia unboxing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
One of the features we like the most from the latest additions to Taptu is the “related search” section. It’s unbelievably useful and interesting, provides tons of great content to look at. Stuck on a delayed train the other day, I got to my destination having read up on the Wildebeest, the Alice in Wonderland syndrome and the career of American kids tv star Miley Cyrus. Taptu, helping you discover something new everyday, unh?
And sometimes. Just sometimes. It goes a little bit wrong. When it does, it’s usually accompanied by uncontrollable laughter coming from the testers’ corner of the office.
Our favourite example this week has to be the related searches for “panda” - one would expect to get some more animals, possibly some terms relating to China or bamboo. But in this case, we found the top related search term to be… ahem, “panda porn”. (click on the image for a larger version of the screenshot)
Try the Taptu mobile search engine on your phone at taptu.com, find music, videos, news and more, then share your search results with friends by SMS, email or Twitter.
In this age of gadgets and technology, it’s easy to waste hours in front of a computer looking at the endless pit of email, news and entertainment stuff that’s provided to us. The best way to get away from it used to be to go away on holiday where the little beach resort (fingers crossed) wouldn’t have web access, forcing us to live without email for some time. But no-thanks to phones getting smarter every year, that much deserved holiday sees email, SMS and the web sneak into our luggage.
Sign up to RSS feed