Guessing the future of mobile is a fool's errand. But that doesn't mean we're in the position of knowing nothing about the future. This presentation goes through the process of trying to understand what the future of mobile might hold, from the points of view of convenience and affordance. It then looks at how this new era of computing might impact the work of PR, marketing and communications folk, arguing that we need to speak a broader range of languages, including data and statistical analysis, design and development and business value measurement. The presentation was delivered at the CIPR Share This Live conference in London on 11 July 2013.

1. The Convenience Tradeoff
By Peter Sigrist, 33 Digital

2. Convenience
If everyone is busy making
everything, how can anyone
perfect anything? We start to
confuse convenience with joy.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZmIiIXuZ0
Apple by Design, 2013

3. Convenience

4. Convenience
Convenience such as
anytime access and
speed of recovery “was by
far the best predictor
across all information
seeking.”
Source: http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2011/connaway-lisr.pdf
Dervin & Reinhard, 2006

5. The 1970s format wars
Sony: Betamax JVC: VHS Quasar: Great Time
Machine
Philips: Video 2000 Sanyo: V-Cord
Quality
Price
Content
Recording time

6. The 1970s format wars
The principle factor in the
success of VHS was how many
times you would need to change
the tape.
Source: James Lardner, Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the VCR Wars, 1987

7. THE SIREN SONG OF CONVENIENCE
The age of desire

8. The age of desire
We’re getting close to a science fiction fantasy, where we believe we are
entitled to have everything we desire. This is a credo that’s taking over in
user interface design.
Source: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=desire+paths&year_start=1988&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

9. A Flickr obession
A search on Flickr for “desire path” reveals the strange
obsession with unplanned paths across lawns and through the
snow, revealing routes of maximal convenience.

10. When convenience is in charge
But what happens when convenience is the only factor?

11. When convenience is in charge
Convenience alone leads to design of questionable value. In
such cases, the focus has typically been on only one type of
convenience, such as time-saving.

12. Convenience alone leads to dead ends
You don’t need anyone to tell you that these inventions are
bad. Yet it’s worth considering why. It’s all about affordance.

13. Taxonomy of convenience
Source: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=5956
Time saving/
buying
Effort saving
AppropriatenessPortability
Accessibility
Avoidance of
unpleasantness
Six categories of convenience (Yale & Venkatesh, 1986)
How enjoyable/creative is the
time spent? How valuable is the
time taken?
How much easier is a
task, thanks to a product or
service?
How much does a product or
service fit a given need?
How much can a product or
service stop an activity feeling
like a chore?
How much a product or service
can be used wherever and
whenever a consumer wants

14. Affordance

15. Affordance
The value of a well-designed
object is when it has such a rich
set of affordances that the people
who use it can do things with it
that the designer never
imagined.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM
Don Norman, 1994

16. Affordance
Source: http://humansindesign.com/post/6808883501/why-is-this-iphone-from-studioneat-accessory-awesome
Watching movies
Reading the
morning paper
Stop-motion
videography
Long exposure
photography
Mini-computer
Facetime
(Hands free)

17. Mobile
affordance
• Connection to leisure services
• Workplace and productivity
enhancements
• Connections to friends and
colleagues
• Notifications and active life
management
• News and current affairs
• Life-enhancing ideas and
inspiration
• Public safety information
• Government and utility services
• Self-tracking and performance
monitoring
• Handiness and comfort
A non-complete list of the
things a well designed
mobile device should
afford.

18. Mobile versus
wearable
• All of the mobile affordances still
apply, but in addition:
• Invisible and instantaneous
access to information
• Audio and physical inputs and
outputs
• Instant switch between
public/network/private states
• Secret/subtle relationship with
information sources
Does changing the
context or definition
help? What if we talk
about personal or
wearable computing
instead of mobile
devices? Do we think of
different affordances?

19. The affordance conclusion
We’re going more Not so much
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk Source: http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com/

20. So what?

21. What does it mean for comms
Most communications decisions are
still made using the paradigm of:
• mass media
• brand control
• bi-directional relationships

22. What does it mean for comms
We need are entering the age of
peer to peer relationships, which
means:
• information flows fast, free
• the public does the talking
• communicators need a new
language

23. What it means for comms
Skills/knowledge
• Techniques for
activating peer to peer
comms through WOM
and social
• Data and insights
• Development and
design
• A/B test and learn
Impact
• Value-based
measurement
• Culture of risk
• Managing with less
control
• Structured for
responsiveness

24. The journey
What is the journey we need to
go on as clients and agencies?
Learn the
language
Practice the
skills
Test and be
ready to fail

25. Peter Sigrist, July 2013
Managing director, 33 Digital
@psigrist