Business and Social Context Needs/desires and Functions Technological Opportunities Function and Form Figure 2: Observation Subject Using Phone and Appointment Book Simultaneously. the Rooms Are Kept over Time and Eventually Form a Mutual Scrapbook of Memories And/or a Data/transaction Archive

35 i n t e r a c t i o n s. .. j a n u a r y + f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 2 In this article, Aaron Marcus and Associates (AM+A) describes a project with Samsung Electronics to design user-interface concepts for the future of wireless devices. AM+A conducted extensive research, including contextual observation, then designed a suite of product ideas that Samsung could incorporate into specific products over the next few years. Samsung also acquired knowledge about the user-interface development process. AM+A sought to design usable as well as useful mobile devices that could overcome extreme input and output challenges and become true personal companions. 36 i n t e r a c t i o n s. .. j a n u a r y + f e b r u a r y 2 0 0 2 Introduction In the summer of 2000, the User-Interface Research and Development department of Samsung Electronics Corporation approached AM+A to develop conceptual user-interface designs for future wireless information devices (WIDs) evolving from cell phones and targeted for the year 2002. This project involved market research, user observation, brain-storming, scenario development, and proto-typing over the course of four months. In this article, we explain our research process, some of the research themes, and the resulting design concepts. Samsung gave AM+A a great amount of control over strategy and design. The entire user-experience was to be considered, from performance to pleasure, and the entire U.S. mobile market was our user-base to study. This freedom presented our design team with formidable challenges. We were to synthesize emerging technologies, but we knew from the outset that we wanted to avoid the trap of "technology in search of a problem." The result from this project was the conceptual design for a "wireless information device" (WID) that we named "Mob-i." The "i" stands for both "information" and "identity." AM+A delivered to Samsung a "design concept catalog" of nearly one hundred different product directions and feature ideas. Some of these concept briefs are shown in the Design Concept examples. All of the designs shown are owned by Sam-sung with patents pending. Researching the Wireless Future, Distilling the Hope from the Hype As difficult as it is to make small "baby-face" devices usable (i.e., devices with small displays), there is also the fundamental challenge of making them useful. …