China Mobile Equipment User Experience Survey

China Mobile Product User Experience Report

The purpose of this article is to introduce the market conditions to developers who are not interested in the Chinese mobile market.

- The original translation from the Nokia Forum

Most Chinese consumers are heavy users of mobile phones. For example: mobile entertainment and Internet access is widely used. Chinese users prefer to play and use the latest device features than Western users stay on the mere use of answering and messaging functions.

China is accelerating the development of mobile culture with Chinese characteristics. Whether it is mobile phone hardware devices, services and usage have their own unique features. The market is hard to meet the rapid growth of 600 million mobile phone users; Chinese users have very high demands on the appearance and functionality of mobile products.

In China, we found two opposite cultures:

In popular culture, bigger, louder, brighter colors tend to work better. Reflected in the typical psychological level is a large number, dense and complicated design symbolizes status and success. In fact, low-end users are looking forward to finding all the information they need in one place.

· High-end users, often the opposite, design aesthetics more focused on simplicity and uniqueness.

However, as products and services tend to tend to maximize market share and attract the masses, visual design in China tends to become more popular - becoming rich and dense.

1. From crowded people to crowded interface

If we look at the visual appearance of Chinese websites and mobile interfaces based on Western standards, China always has a dazzling layout and deepens the notion that products should be popular and content rich.

In the West, the concept of "less is more" is more emphasized, while Chinese culture advocates complicated aesthetics. Vacancies, blank spaces, or minimalist visual designs give little scope for a product or service and are not particularly popular or sought after.

In addition, allowing more text in a smaller screen space. Compared to the Chinese website and the English website is the most obvious.

Figure: 17173.com - a massively multiplayer online game (MMO game) Chinese and English website interface

There are many examples of typical Chinese websites:

Sina.com, the media portal, provides Chinese news, entertainment, financial information and lifestyle content to users worldwide. Mobile version can be linked to http://wap.sina.com.cn/.

Sohu.com, another portal that provides information, entertainment and communication services.

· Taobao.com, China's most popular online auction and retail website.

Chinese website design feels crowded and group, but the Western design preferences and leave blank.

Figure: China website design

Figure: European website design

Dazzling visual design

One of the most important features of China's visual design is the complicated details. Objects that emphasize clear highlights, vibrant graphics, and dynamic effects are typical features of the interface.

Figure: Graphic rich in Chinese website, and often use dynamic effects

Users using mobile services may face intense contrasting colors, shining graphical components and common visual noise. And these are common across the Internet.

Few colors and dynamic effects are associated with usability, but dynamic technologies and effects like Flash Lite in Java and Adobe are often used for purely decorative and eye-catching commercials. Website navigation logic and architecture are very common, the appearance has done very dazzling.

In China, the common mobile phones on the streets are not those that are household names. These cottage machines use the same integrated circuit, the same appearance, for example:

Touch screen input is not touch is to use stylus;

Similar software look and feel and user interface features

· Adobe Flash Lite based user interface

Even though the hardware design, materials, and shapes of mobile devices follow the looks of some well-known manufacturers' products, the user interface does not show up.

Figure: Tianyu screen shot of the K-E60 touch screen device

Chinese mobile devices look similar in style. There are also some devices rely on appearance to attract customers rather than a strong brand. The user interface can be unique and sophisticated, but there are no functional changes and innovations. In addition, some design details, such as the lack of consistency between mobile and interface animation design.

Sometimes it's just the look of the user interface that dazzles it. For example, under the main screen and one or two dazzling page layers, it may simply be a standard, simple user interface platform. Chinese designers may be very sophisticated design of their designs, even if the content and imagination are not the same function.

One of the most obvious overall impressions of China's handset device interface is that dazzling stunning visual effects replace the one that should have been the focus of the interface, easy to understand, and usability.

3, user trends

Personalized needs

Chinese like to personalize their cell phones. Especially for young people, personalization allows users to express their interest and personality towards fashion and trends. Popular personalization includes images, ringtone downloads and a wide range of ringback tones services.

Figure: Desktop Wallpaper / Screensaver Image on a Mobile Device

· Widely used mobile Internet

In China, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is widely used and bearers for the mobile Internet. Therefore, many well-known websites provide a short version of WAP network services. Web site optimization is also very common, some services directly using PDA mode layout. Recently, commercial websites began to provide independent touch screen interface and matching popular mobile interface, for example, Iphone and its Chinese clone. The full page layout is only natural to those who use the latest equipment and faster speed users use.

According to ShanghaiNet, a portal focused on the mobile industry, China's most popular mobile services are focused on search engines, social networking services (SNS), and news and media sites. In particular, the hottest is the portals, which contains the site directory and search capabilities, so many users set it as the home page.

For example, hao123.com (mobile site wap.hao123.com) belongs to Baidu, the largest search engine in China. In addition there is kong.net, which mainly provides news, media, content, community and mobile advertising. Sina also mentioned earlier sina.com is also a large online media company, providing mobile value-added services. If you want to browse mobile formatted pages on your desktop, you can use a Firefox browser with a WML browser, such as the wmlbrowser plug-in (http://wmlbrowser.mozdev.org/).

Figure: From left to right: Kong.net's mobile site, Sina.com WAP page, Sina.com's PDA layout

On the face of it, pages optimized for mobile phones are relatively readable and have a clear layout, compared to WAP pages, where the pages in the PDA format use a clear icon to identify the content directory. However, all the sub-menu content of the page is similar to the simple, just simple text layout.

The graphical content of mobile web services significantly lighter weight, common in the computer network environment, the principle of density is also used in the mobile site model.

4, application software and services

Mobile games are very popular - According to the China Internet Network Information Center (http://www.cnnic.net.cn/index.htm) WAP reports: In 2007 there are about 32 billion times in China, the game downloads. Most commonly used mobile games. Especially when traveling or working, going to school. The typical user is mainly young men, although young girls are also very popular games.

Figure: Mobile Games - Some popular mobile games downloaded from mgame.qq.com

There are two unique branches in various Chinese mobile game websites. One is a casual game that continues to eat beans and Tetris well-known to women and children. Also, judging by the number of names and download rankings, role play and strategy games in Asia / Japan are also very popular.

The design of mobile games does not have significant Chinese characteristics. Many are Japanese versions of Western games, or game themes and operating skills are similarly mimicked.

In addition to games and media entertainment, mobile e-books are also very popular. Since reading ordinary newspapers is almost impossible in crowded places (buses or subways), the easy way to read ebooks is to make good use of your commute time. With the increase of resolution and the development of mobile phone display screen, e-books will become more and more popular.

Figure: S60 tools. Left: HaaliReader Reader for Windows Mobile System Right: iSilo Reader for Palm OS System

Download portals of downloaded mobile applications in the rankings, similar to Paojiao.com and 3G.CN, personal information management applications, standard fees, data backup, encryption software, anti-virus software, call management, browser and media player very popular.

Figure: S60 tools. From left to right are: NetQin mobile anti-virus software, UCWEB mobile browser, call manager

In addition to the above tools, language learning and dictionary applications are also popular downloads. Kingsoft English Translator and Nokia mobile phone dictionary download is also great.

There are few surprises in the design of most applications. Despite the design details and animations, seldom appear good visual modification.

Some apps are unique to the Chinese market, like call managers that block a lot of spam and phone calls.

However, most mobile applications have very similar forms of interaction with the hardware platform or directly follow common existing procedures.

5, the interpretation of Chinese local style

The main difficulty in assessing China's design science lies in geographical differences and diverse types of services. A large number of users in integrated portals use only simple WAP services, and business service providers are more aimed at high-end users with a high-quality, touch-based interface design. Each design has a purpose, each has its own strengths.

In the mobile industry, visual design with Chinese characteristics at a glance with very few, instead of blind copying. However, there is no imitation of the design style, the Chinese style is more obvious.

Today, Taobao, for example, is currently the largest online auction platform in China. Compared with its competitors eBay, the content is more crowded. The website user experience is very similar.

Figure: Taobao.com, online auction and retail website

Taobao's mobile web service (wap.taobao.com) touches relatively clear, its layout more clearly, to convey a trusted e-commerce services and secure personal transaction information.

Customizable home page design and derivatives for Iphone. (I.mall.taobao.com) page appears clearer, easy to click the icon and navigation bar.

Figure: Taobao.com design for the iPhone mobile interface

Each design, Chinese design has different characteristics. First of all, the mainstream website environment is full of high-density graphics and text. Second, in general mobile design, the main text is not so crowded. Finally, the touch screen and graphic design are closely linked, using the abbreviation into the introduction, easy-to-use interface environment.

6, copy of the inspiration

Not difficult to find, imitation in the existing mobile design is very common. For example, the school (everyone) and happy are social networking services, they are very similar with the popular facebook.

Figure: Examples of similar designs: Browse on Facebook, intranet and happy user group pages

The basic functions of school and happy and facebook the same, including page layout and part of the visual design.

Figure: A similar design example: Twitter and twitter

This kind of imitation is very common in China, from the user interface to hardware devices. Copy the concept of product has become the most effective way to create products today, the idea of ​​the original design may no longer attach importance.

Figure: A similar design example: YouTube and six rooms, Google and Baidu

Ideas do not seem to improve experience and popularity among most users. Varieties with Chinese characteristics, as long as the original product localization and put into the market before. Is not original or imitation does not matter, the key is to win the first capture the market.

7, Widget tools

Recently, big players in China's telecom industry have been targeting open development platforms and network technologies such as widget tools.

With these tools, users have access to comprehensive application updates, such as stock market information, event results, weather forecasts and more.

China's development engineers have always insisted on keeping pace with widget development, even if the market is still small. In 2008, Sohu and China Mobile announced that they will step up the development of widget in the mobile Internet and release many successful products such as QQ Weather and Sohu Stock Widget.

Figure: QQ weather from left to right (Tencent), NBA news (air network), fun (Magus Soft), Sohu shares (Sohu)

For development engineers, mobile users are increasingly paying attention to the quality and availability of services. Widget to provide users with a more convenient platform experience.

In a recent case, China Mobile opened a beta version of mspaces.net in 2008, similar to igoogle, Yahoo! Go, WidSets, and provided services such as custom home page and RSS customization.

Personalized custom service is no different for Western designers, but only for the Chinese market.

8, conclusion

For the Chinese mobile service market: entertainment is very important. Best mobile applications have endless content and entertainment features. These large amounts of content to attract users to enter, and become "repeat customers." Even so, a jump and extend the single page, the page is still shrouded in dense information.

A lot of demand information challenges the design. A fresh, simple page is the best expression of needs and functions, but for Chinese users, not only the lack of information and plain boring.

Add a large number of images and content must have the design analysis and support. Designers should consider the following:

Repeated and lengthy content: hectic, crowded websites and experiences are generally accepted. A lot of information does not mean that reduce UI usability, the key lies in the rational layout and information flow design.

Figure: Examples of streamlined content: sohu stock widget

Technologies such as widgets and RSS can enhance the usability theme of content. Especially mobile-related users can customize the view and filter unnecessary content, this type of function is very useful.

Rich visual appeal: Attract attention by using bright colors and dynamic image changes. Although there is no reason not to allow such attempts, a good design should use dynamic information to guide users rather than unnecessary glare.

Figure: easy-to-use visual design: Taobao, Papaya mobile, Sina Mofun

With the birth of more and more touch screen mobile phones, clear and blank visual design is even more important. While clarity and simplicity make the experience more practical and easy to use, some service providers still rely on complex visual design to attract users.

Figure: China mobile phone users

Even though some of China's audiences are fond of some Western design concepts, the market is the product-oriented, design-more or local feature.

Source: http: //www.zhangyq.com/china-mobile-device-user-experience-research-report/