Tom, below, makes an interesting observation that is complemented by another observation by Mark Curtis.
Two points jump our to me:
1) Do we have any flippin’ clue, in the end, what folks are doing with their mobile phones?
2) The answer lies in building your product, releasing it into the wild, and doing some simple observation.
But, as we all know, we try to do all the guess work, contingency planning, and pitching before the product is released.
I think the optimum is somewhere between pre-design research, gut instinct, and trust that your users will quickly converge on the real use of your product.*
Link: Tom Hume: Off-hours mobile usage.
Mark Curtis on mobilising our meat based selves: "On Flirtomatic, a flirting community on mobile and web that I’m closely involved with, we see our biggest interaction (chat) levels at 4.30 in the afternoon and between 10 and 12 midnight – and equally on phones and web. These latter users are to some extent choosing a virtual night out."
We see similar behaviour with mobile puzzling. We expected commuting times to be the big hours for it – 7-9am and 5-7am, mirroring the times when crosswords and sudoku are embedded into everyday lives already. (We can track when people are actually wanting to puzzle because Puzzler uses a single download, pay-per-play model)
No way. Usage grows steadily throughout the day and peaks in the wee hours (2-3am). This is complementary to puzzling in the real world.
*Thinking back, I’ve always understood this (I’m a died-in-the-wool arch-skeptic) and have always tried to place products in strange places. I was looking for that ‘they did what with it?’ kinda response. It’s a minima-maxima thing that the science geek in me can ramble on but will spare you.
