17 August 2001

Why WAP's Failing WAP, the means by which mobile phones access the Internet, piercingly analyzed by Jakob Neilsen a way's back: Although poor task support is a serious usability problem for a big-screen website, it is a usability catastrophe for a small-screen WAP service. With the big screen, users can see many more alternative options, and thus it is not so critical that designers pick exactly the right ones at each step. For WAP: Be right or be dead. It seems to be the accepted wisdom that WAP will go nowhere, but Neilsen suggests in this alertbox that it is possible to make the interface usable, and that there are categories of use that it's suited to. (via Diveintomark) 8:42:43 AM