understanding your mobile user

© Stephen Janaway 2017

UNDERSTANDING YOUR MOBILE USERSTEPHEN JANAWAY

[email protected]@testinginthepub


This Presentation – Understanding Your Mobile User

• Why Is It Important?• What Is the Current State of the Mobile World?• Who Are These Users Anyway?• What Do They Do?• What Can We Learn From Them?• How Can That Help Our Testing?


By Marvel (Based upon a NASA image, see [1].) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons


Yet We Are Surprisingly Similar

Source: gs.statcounter.com


What Makes Mobile Testing Different?

• Many platforms.• Many OS versions in the field.• Many different hardware configurations.• Devices have limited memory and processing

capability.• Many different sorts of users.• Short, fast paced projects.• Apps are launched to a large audience.


MOBILE USERS ARE MORE EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED


QUALITY IS CURRENTLY STILL NOT GREAT…

AND USERS CAN LEAVE FAST, VISIBLE FEEDBACK


UNDERSTAND YOUR MOBILE USER

AND TEST LIKE THEM


Understand Your Mobile User and Test Like Them

• User Persona’s.• User Profiling.• Industry Statistics.• Apps Store Reviews.• Analytics.• Use Your Users.


User Persona’s

“Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way”.

Alan Cooper


Benefits

•Help us share a specific, consistent understanding of various groups of users. •Proposed solutions can be guided by how well they meet the needs of individual user personas. •Provide a human "face" so as to focus empathy on the persons represented by the demographics.


Robert

• Name: Robert• Age: 32• Background: Robert is a young, single professional. He works in

software at a cool and trendy East London company. He graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Computer Science. He has just purchased his first flat. Until recently, he lived with his four roommates in a shared house.

• Robert doesn’t have a home phone; his mobile phone is his whole world. This allows him to make and get calls, receive emails and listen to music. If he doesn’t have his mobile with him, he feels lost. He’s seriously considering a smart watch and already has a wearable fitness device.

• When a new version of his mobile phone comes out, he immediately gets the hardware upgrade. He’s always showing his friends the new applications he can use with his phone.


Robert

• Name: Robert• Age: 32• Background: Robert is a young, single professional. He works in software

at a cool and trendy East London company. He graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Computer Science. He has just purchased his first flat. Until recently, he lived with his four roommates in a shared house.

• Robert doesn’t have a home phone; his mobile phone is his whole world. This allows him to make and get calls, receive emails and listen to music. If he doesn’t have his mobile with him, he feels lost. He’s seriously considering a smart watch and already has a wearable fitness device.



Robert

• Name: Robert• Age: 32• Background: Robert is a young, single professional. He works in

software at a cool and trendy East London company. He graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Computer Science. He has just purchased his first flat. Until recently, he lived with his four roommates in a shared house.

• Robert doesn’t have a home phone; his mobile phone is his whole world. This allows him to make and get calls, receive emails and listen to music. If he doesn’t have his mobile with him, he feels lost. He’s seriously considering a smart watch and already have a wearable fitness device.



Mobile Devices Are Complicated

• While your application runs, the phone is:– Talking to the network.–Working out where you are.–Maybe receiving calls, texts,

Facebook and Twitter updates.

= Complicated Test Scenarios


Mary

• Name: Mary• Age: 70• Background: Mary is a retired lecturer. She is married and lives in a small

village in North Yorkshire. • She primarily uses her mobile phone to keep in touch with friends and

family. However she is more tech savvy than many of her friends, and has recently started using her mobile device for online shopping. She owns a laptop and frequently uses it because of screen size. Her eyesight is deteriorating with age, and she wears glasses for reading and driving.

• To her, a mobile device is a tool and nothing more. She only upgrades on the advice of her son, preferring to stick with ‘what she knows’.

• Mary lives in an area where the mobile phone reception is variable. Until recently this was a problem, however her son has recently installed wireless broadband.

"HappyPensioneer". Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons


Mary

• Name: Mary• Age: 70• Background: Mary is a retired lecturer. She is married and lives in a

small village in North Yorkshire. • She primarily uses her mobile phone to keep in touch with friends and






Mary








Mary





• Mary lives in an area where the mobile phone reception is variable.Until recently this was a problem, however her son has recently installed wireless broadband.



PERSONA’S CAN DRIVE REQUIREMENTS

BUT THEY CAN ALSO HELP DRIVE CONVERSATIONS


User Profiles

• Power User.• Light User.• Social Networker.


Understand the Market


Use Your Own Data


Understand How People Use Their Devices


Understand When People Use Their Devices


Understand Where People Use Their Devices

Source: gs.statcounter.com


Usability Testing

Image courtesy of userlytics.com


Users Can Tell You What They Want


You Can Start a Dialog


Test Using Users

"2003-09-23 Convenience of a cell phone" by Ildar Sagdejev (Specious) - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons


UNDERSTAND YOUR MOBILE USER

AND DON’T TEST LIKE THEM


Why?

“It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” - Steve Jobs


So I Leave You With This…

• Mobile Users Are Different.• Make friends with your UX team.• Understand the Market.• Understand Your Users.• Use Your Users (both internal and external).• Test Like Your Users!!• Don’t Test Like Your Users.


“QUALITY IS VALUE TO SOME PERSON WHO MATTERS”

James Bach and Michael Bolton


Questions?

“Be proud, your work will soon be in the hands of millions”

A NOKIA PRODUCT MANAGER

Stephen Janaway

[email protected]

understanding your mobile user

Software