About the Mobile UX Research Group

Mobile applications present unique user challenges and specialized requirements for information access and display. What can be done to improve the end user experience from a better understanding of “user intent” to more “mobile friendly” inputs and outputs? Small screens, varying display methods, and alternative text entry techniques all have significant impacts on the Mobile user experience. Examine the role emerging technologies such as speech recognition and predictive search have on shaping the experience for Mobile users. Identify new search and navigation strategies for the Mobile context. Evaluate existing research on selected areas of Mobile user input and display methods. Analyze research on unique requirements and expectations when searching in a Mobile context.

The Research Team

Yaro Brock
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
Yaro Brock is in his last term at the University of Washington and is soon to receive his M.S. in Technical Communication. His focus is in usability testing and user-centered design. He has spent six years in the mobile industry and so has a keen interest in bringing both of these worlds together.

Ninad Dalal
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
I am a senior in the Technical Communication program at the University of Washington. My area of concentration in the Emerging Mobile Technologies research group is technology issues—what current technology allows in the mobile ecosystem and how [near] future technologies will influence the mobile users’ experience. I cannot imagine life without my music and my computer.

David Hruska
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
David Hruska is an undergraduate in the UW Technical Communication department and will be graduating in 2007. His main interests are in Interaction Design and product usability. While in the Mobile Technolgies research group, he explored interests in what could be the future of human interface technologies - multimodality.

Daphne Lee
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
Daphne is a senior undergraduate in Technical Communications who will be graduating in June 2007. Her area of interest in this project was Speech Communication, in particular Voice Recognition and Interface Technology. In her research, she questioned why voice technology was not ubiquitous in everyday life and sought to find solutions in the area of computers, speech technology, and linguistics.

Rob MacDonald
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
Rob is an Evening Masters student in Technical Communications specializing in remote and mobile usability testing. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, where he's a Web Producer for Canada's largest credit union, Coast Capital Savings. Previously, he served as Web Strategist at the University of British Columbia and managed the interactive division of a Vancouver advertising agency. Rob loves spending time with his son and daughter... in spite of the fact that they haven't allowed him and his wife to have a full night sleep in the past three years.

Christine Oon
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
Christine is pleased to be in Seattle pursuing her Master’s in Technical Communication. For this research group she looked at voice user interfaces from a social science and linguistics perspective. Her current mobile phone is a Motorola Razr, although she misses her old Nokia.

Ariel van Spronsen
Quarter of participation: Winter 2007
Ariel joined the Mobile UX research group out of an interest in the unique user experience challenges posed by the mobile interface, but discovered that the interface is only the tip of the iceberg – a surface expression of a complex industry ecosystem. Ariel is a second-year master’s student in the Technical Communication at the University of Washington, where her focus has been on the interaction between people, contexts, and communication products. A strong belief that there is no separation among these factors, and that user-centered methods are powerful tools in crafting better information experiences, guides her work. She finds simplicity in yoga, communing with wise felines, driving her GTI on winding roads, and spending as much time outside as possible.

Carol A. Taylor
Facilitator
My current position is Director of User Experience for the InfoSpace Mobile Group. I’m pursuing graduate studies in Human Computer interaction through the Technical Communication department with a focus on Mobile Computing. Prior to Infospace, I managed the user experience for the consumer-facing web properties at T-Mobile USA (www.t-mobile.com, www.my.t-mobile.com). I was also a principal and executive manager in the interactive design and development company the Magi Group, and the technical communications company Sakson & Taylor/S&T Onsite.