Contextual context of mobile applications

It is impossible to create the ultimate perfect experience, because each user will use the product in a different way, which involves a variety of factors, including culture, social environment, personal taste, target motivation, and so on.

Although these factors make it difficult for us to understand exactly how different users experience the use of the product, the study of context in mobile applications can help us to comb through these factors in order to understand the user as thoroughly as possible and to create a product experience model.

three kinds of situation

Before the actual design and development of a product, sufficient research work is necessary, we need at least the product at the core of the target user base. This work does not need to be complicated, sometimes a pen, a piece of paper, plus some common sense is enough.

The study of context-using contexts is particularly useful for pitfalls and potential problems that can be encountered when products are put into the market earlier. Contextual contexts are grouped into three categories:

Physical Context: the physical environment in which a user is using a product. Technical context: Technical factors that affect the user's understanding and use of the product, including the design of the mobile application itself and the system platform, hardware, etc. of the product. Social context: the promotion of product dissemination has played a role in promoting the Internet social attributes.

Physical Situation

As a product design and developer, we often focus too much attention on the product itself, thus ignoring many external factors that affect the user experience. The first step in understanding the user and improving the experience is to understand how the target user is using the product. In what environment do they use your application, at home or on the road? Will you be in a hurry when you use it? Are there often external factors that can cause the use process to be interrupted?

Let's be specific, for example, when you're playing a game on your phone, it's probably because you're waiting for the bus to pass the boring time. The process of playing the game is interrupted at any time, such as when the car comes and you have to get on, and the experience of the game is interrupted. When you are seated in the car, you will be able to continue the game before the phone continues, and you obviously want to play from where it was interrupted. For this game product, the pause button or the ability to save the process automatically when exiting is required.

By creating such scenarios, you can clearly foresee the problems that a product might encounter in actual use.

We can analyze the physical situation of the products from two aspects: first, the environmental background, such as indoor or outdoor, background noise, light intensity, and so on, the second is the behavior of people, such as walking, driving, standing waiting, cooking, shopping and so on. Combined with the user's core goals and requirements, analyze how they usually use the product in the context of the environment and behavior, you will find a lot of external factors that may affect the product experience, and in the design process targeted to solve or avoid.

Here's a summary of the problems with the physical context:

How do users usually use your application in the geographic environment? What factors in such geographical environment would distract users? Are there any corresponding predictive and response mechanisms in your product for these interfering factors? Are users usually multitasking when using your product? Does the user's own behavioral state interfere with the product's use? For the user's own behavior caused by the interference, the product can have a corresponding prediction and response mechanism? Is it necessary to optimize the function and design of the product according to the geographical environment where the user is using the product?

Related reading: IOS Wow Experience – designed for the context of an application

Technical Situation

Another thing to consider is the product's own design, technical characteristics, and the user's technical ability to use the product. To cite a simple example, there is a lot of debate about the design style of physical and flat interface, in fact, a general principle is that no matter how the design style, we must ensure that the interface is self explanatory, so that users can understand and use in a very short time.

A full test is necessary, such as a new icon that you think is very easy to understand, but it is very likely that the user will not understand the meaning of the icon because he has never seen such a design.

Usability testing through paper prototypes is always helpful in the design process. Simple, fast testing does not cost much, but it can help you look at the actual interaction between the actual user and the product prototype, documenting and analyzing their reactions and decisions, and this process can bring you a lot of unexpected information.

It is also an important decision to select a product-oriented system platform based on the group characteristics of the target users. You need to ask yourself some specific questions, such as the technical requirements of the product function for the platform device, how the system resources and the power consumption are consumed, and so on. Lightweight applications such as to-do items shouldn't have a lot of power consumption, and it's hard for users to keep limited but very power-hungry applications. Designers should work with developers to take into account the technical situational elements that may affect the product experience. Some typical problems include:

According to the characteristics of the target users, what system platforms do you need to support your application products? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different system platforms? What are the features of the hardware devices that the application needs to utilize? What is the application consumption of system resources? What are the technical prospects for the target market? Does the application require the user to maintain a network connection? What is the application for traffic consumption? Is it possible to reduce the amount of data transferred in functional design and technology? How to secure user data?

Related reading: How to create a high-performance mobile experience

Social Situation

It is challenging to consider the social context in which mobile applications are situated. The internet has linked the world, and we cannot underestimate the role of social networking sites in product promotion and dissemination.

We need to determine the possible social factors in the product and consider whether the Internet can be used effectively. Today, "sharing" or "liking" such features are common, but you need to first find out whether these social functions are relevant to your product and can effectively generate additional value.

To consider the social context characteristics of the product, we need to think about some problems from the user's point of view:

What are the goals and actual requirements of

users? What is the goal of the product? How does the user interact with the product? How much attention does the user need to focus on interacting with the product? What are the core functions of the product? How do users use these features? Does the user's use of the product differ from the design objectives? How does the user react to the interface? Do users need to maintain a network connection when they use certain features?

By analyzing the characteristics of social situation, you can find the functional and cultural elements in the product which are beneficial to social communication, and promote them to potential target users.

Related reading:

products in the mobile application market to the success of 10 points recommended the success of mobile applications-from product concept to marketing summary

Are you about to start designing a mobile app? Remember to consider these contextual factors that may affect the product experience. To create a product that really helps users solve specific problems, this research is essential, after all, in the real design and development work, you should understand why users download your application, and how they will in the context of how to use your application, if possible, Whether they can promote their initiative to disseminate your products.

Source: http://beforweb.com/node/180