Gadgets Manual

Usability development is nowadays part of almost any product development process. The goal of usability is to improve and guarantee the efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction with which a product is used. There are varying reasons why usability of a product may not be up to standards. Methods, their selection, organizational design principles and strategy-level decisions all affect the outcome of usability development. The first ones are within influence of the usability team; others are constraints within which they operate. The goal of this Master‟s thesis is to discover how usability development of Nokia‟s N900 mobile computer has succeeded. The analysis material from development phase comes from Nokia and from post-sales phase from my research. Of particular interest are matters that are related to the user interface. The results reveal some, but not significant, discrepancies between development and post-sales phase results. According to the results, it seems that multitasking on a mobile device brings along user interface issues related to controlling multiple applications.
Keywords: Usability, UCD, N900, Mobile computer, Smartphone
The mobile devices of today feature a multiplicity of different operating systems (OS): Symbian, Android, iPhone, Maemo and many more. To a common user, however, the operating system itself is a secondary worry or no worry at all. The overall functionality of the device is what generally matters. In other words, the users want devices that accomplish their goals: offer easy ways to access relevant information, business or leisure, on the go and facilitate communication (Cox, 2010) (Sohn, Li, Griswold, & Hollan, 2009).
In the focus of this thesis is the N900, Nokia‟s mobile computer from late 2009. It is a Maemo device as opposed to most Nokia‟s devices that have Symbian as their operating system (OS). The N900 is a finger-usable touch screen device that also offers a keyboard. In addition to finger-usability, the N900 differs from other N-series devices in that it has telephone-functionality which has increased the attention the device has received in comparison to previous N-series devices. The N900 is marketed as a mobile computer and a high-end device in terms of quality and price, which has created more expectations and interest regarding it. One part of the user experience (UX) is the device‟s usability which forms the core of this thesis.

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