Design Case Study: Wi- Fi and Handhelds ... - ACM Digital Library

CHI 2004 / Design Case Study

24-29 April / Vienna, Austria

Wi-Fi and Handhelds – Perfect Synergy Scé Y. Pike palmOne, Inc.

Abstract

955 Salerno Dr. Campbell, CA 95008 USA

Consumers assume when they make a purchase of a Wi-Fi handheld they will have to spend all day to set up and get it connected. When palmOne Inc. decided to produce a Wi-Fi product, we wanted to create a handheld that users could turn on and go. The goal was to give the users a simple and elegant experience with Wi-Fi, unlike competitive products that were hard to use, and often intimidated the users.

[email protected] [email protected] Paul Osborne palmOne, Inc. 400 N. McCarthy Blvd. Milpitas, CA 95035 USA [email protected]

palmOne had an opportunity to branch out the product line with Wi-Fi and position the company as mobile broadband product providers. The challenge was to create a solid Wi-Fi user experience that connected users seamlessly in various locations without taking away the control of the handheld from the user. We introduced a simple wizard that stepped users through the initial connection process then automatically connected in different locations and simplified configuration of hidden or encrypted networks.

Categories & Subject Descriptors Primary Classification: C.2.1 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Network Architecture and Design - Wireless communication

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI 2004, April 24–29, 2004, Vienna, Austria. ACM 1-58113-703-6/04/0004.

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Target Demographics Through research we identified three key segments in the Enterprise market. We mapped these segments to a high-level Mobility vs. Functionality Grid. The needs and requirements will vary by segment and it’s clear there is some overlap.

General Terms: Design, Human Factors

Keywords Interaction Design, Product Design, Usability Research, User Experience, User Interface Design, User Research, User-Centered Design / Human-Centered Design, Wi-Fi, wireless, palm, palmOne, Tungsten, mobile, handhelds, pda, networking, security, encryption, broadband, 802.11

Industry/category Handhelds, Computers, Consumer Electronics, Wireless, Information Technology, Design, Engineering, Software Engineering, Human Computer Interface.

Project/problem statement Objectives Tungsten C is palmOne’s first real Enterprise focused handheld. The product delivers a new level of platform support for the Enterprise market. The internal studies that we conducted at the beginning of the project showed that Pocket PC and its hardware manufacturers were setting the expectations in the Enterprise space. Tungsten C was planned as palmOne's device to gain competitive advantage in the wireless handheld space Makes the experience easier to use Penetrate Enterprise market with a new platform solution using key strategic technologies Get on the same playing field, competitive counter weight to Pocket PC

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Mobility vs. Functionality Grid

Figure 1. Connected Performers – have defined roles, are task focused and react to requests, are implementers. (Individual contributors – engineers, inside sales, product specialists, teacher, etc.)

Mobile Competitives – daily routine of hunting down new opportunities, determined to outperform they’re peers, must communicate perfectly. (Initiators – sales manager, consultants, executives, etc.) Campus Networkers – facilitate and orchestrate meetings, manage a responsive team, tend to be more pragmatic. (Coordinators – project managers, product managers, doctors, local IT managers, etc.)

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The Tungsten C’s target customer segment is the “Campus Networker.” They require real time and seamless access to desktop and server data. It was important that we focused on connectivity for on campus roaming as well as home and public areas. In this market, functionality is increasingly defined and evaluated by corporate decision makers such as Information Technology (IT) management, Chief Information Officers and Chief Technical Officers today. While palmOne Inc. handhelds are already on a number of corporate standards lists, our enterprise customers had identified a number of key areas where they expect improvements.

The second effort tied very closely to the Professional project, Tungsten C Enterprise was a framework for which Enterprise customers can build their solution based on their specific needs. The Enterprise edition was designed to be completed via an Enterprise “solution” or “service” pack. It is with this pack that Tungsten C was to more fully address specific needs around groupware requirements, manageability, security, etc. This product or product solution bundle would be sold or distributed through the more traditional channels. In some cases it may be sold in along with the server solution.

Background/Project participants To effectively meet the needs of our Enterprise customers and to ensure that Tungsten C is competitively viable in the market place the Tungsten C project called for two distinct solutions.

Scé Yun Pike is currently a Senior Human Interface Designer at palmOne Inc. She played the lead interface design role in the development of the Tungsten C. She oversaw and designed the core user experience for Tungsten C. Before joining palmOne Inc., Scé was at VeriSign as a Sr. Usability Engineer for all their PKI Solutions. She played the lead interaction design roles in the initial eCommerce experiences for Fortune 500 giants such as General Motors and Hewlett Packard. She has also worked with Blue Cross, Exponent Failure Analysis, Liquid Audio, ADP, and Stanford as a consultant to refine their Software or Website user experience. Scé studied Anthropology and Electronic Arts at University of California Santa Barbara.

The first was called Tungsten C Professional and was focused on the base needs of the individual professional. It was this product that was intended and marketed to drive the excitement and buzz around palmOne’s Inc. offering for high speed; seamless access to e-mail, instant messaging and the Internet. Tungsten C Professional is targeted at an individual who connects to his or her own network, a network in a sense that is personally managed. This could be the home office, brought into work, the public hot spots, etc. At one time or another it is expected that this individual will bring this into an Enterprise environment and try to connect. It is for this reason we need to be careful not to alienate the IT manager. The majority of sales and distribution was expected to be through select retail locations such as Office Depot, Staples, and Best Buy etc.

Drew Bamford is the Interaction Design Manager at Teague in Seattle. He played a key role as a hands-on consultant to palmOne in the design of the Tungsten C. Drew’s broad background in product development, coupled with his depth of experience in user interface design, enables him to make innovative contributions to

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the design of digital products, ranging from consumer electronics to medical handhelds to home appliances. Drew earned a degree in Product Design from Stanford University, where he studied Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design under Terry Winograd.

Most relevant was supporting new features such as broadband wireless via Wi-Fi. However, this would only allow certain technological capabilities because they just had to fit into the existing industrial design. Due to the hardware limitations a large effort on the software side would be required. Tungsten C’s market strategy was to have as many features as the competition while offering a product that is superior in ease of use and style.

Paul Osborne was the Product Marketing Manager for Tungsten C. At Palm, Inc. he managed product marketing for the Palm IIIC and Tungsten C products. Prior to that he worked at AST Computer and Hewlett Packard as a Product Manager. Paul attended the University of North Texas and received a degree in 1991 for BBA Retail Management/Marketing.

We knew that in the end it all rested on a superior user experience with Wi-Fi for the product to be considered a success in the market place. The primary design challenges and concerns when designing for Tungsten C had been broken out to the four areas as listed below.

Danny Epstein is currently a Senior Engineer at palmOne Inc. He helped design and then implemented most of the user interface for the Tungsten C. He designed the 802.1x plug-in mechanism and worked with Meetinghouse to implement a LEAP plug-in. Before moving over to palmOne, Danny was lead developer for the Exchange Manager at Palm Source. Danny earned two degrees in Computer Science from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Challenge 1: Long Term Brand Definitions There was a possible palmOne brand implication due to its target market, the nature of the product, and its departure from previous interaction models as listed under the next header. Challenge 2: Departure from historical palmOne User Scenarios Historically palmOne’s focus had been very narrow, concentrating on what were considered core applications such as Calendar, To Do’s etc. This product would open this focus and create new user scenarios that we had never had to contend with before.

Project dates and duration The project began in July 2002 and the product launched in May 2003, an incredibly quick turnaround for a product that encompassed a new process of development and functionality that palmOne had never tried before.

The focus of the handheld would no longer be PIM (Personal Information Management) but connectivity.

Challenge

There needs to be the ability to easily move around in different environments such as from home to work to public while keeping these factors in mind:

To get palmOne’s Tungsten C to market quickly we had to use as much of the existing hardware design as possible and add new interior and board components.

Network differences in configuration and set-up

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User mind-set in that particular environment

Challenge 4: Interoperability One of Product Marketing’s goals was to ease the concerns of Enterprise customers regarding the interoperability of the Tungsten C with Microsoft product offerings. We had to take this into concern as well as plan for interoperability within our own applications.

Seamless Wi-Fi experience within applications Excellent battery management since Wi-Fi quickly drained battery life. The ability to Network HotSync, which can produce several possible user scenarios such as: HotSync to multiple desktops

Microsoft product offerings (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint)

HotSync to servers

Wi-Fi operations between applications

Discovery of desktops for HotSync

File Access

(Automated HotSync)

Printing utility

Challenge 3: Networks We knew as we were going into this that we had several levels of consideration when it came to networks and network settings, not just on the handheld but in the environments of the user. There were existing network connection methods on the handheld that we could not and should not change for the user such as IR, modems, etc. New technologies had to be considered as well such as, Bluetooth, GPRS, etc. We also had the challenge of all the various ways a company or a user would set up and configure their own Wi-Fi network.

Challenge 5: Internal Process and Core Team Overall, we clearly knew the design challenges in front of us. Nothing was unexpected except for the challenges that were brought on internally within the team. With any project there is some convincing that has to be done about the potential design and user interactions and with this particular product it was doubly so, since we were entering unknown territory. There was a tremendous amount of pressure from the executive level to get this right. The three core departments that were working on the software solutions, Engineering, Product Marketing (PM), and Human Interface (HI), had strong opinions about how the solution should be handled.

Initial Setup and/or Configuration of Wi-Fi, VPN, Networks, HotSync, (Dynamic IP?) on the handheld and environment.

There were agreements made on the design that were later disputed. The crux of the issue came down to conflicting priorities between ease of use and engineering capabilities. The project was a process of managing the design while building relationships with the other stakeholders.

Switching between LAN, WAN, and PAN network configurations Switching between Wi-Fi and other network configurations (Bluetooth, etc.) Status indicators (signal strength indicator that can double as access to configuration)

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Solution summary

Final Design - We incorporated what we learned from usability. To reach UI Freeze, all artwork, text, tip text, widgets and interaction are documented in the final version of the design flows, released to Engineering, User Assistance (Docs), Internationalization and QA.

We had a rigorous design process due to time constraints and the challenges that we were facing. We created set tasks matched accordingly to the overall project schedule. Here is the process we followed: Discovery - During the development of the Concept Brief by Product Marketing, the HI Team conducts research to identify market trends, key user segments and important user scenarios. This helps to answer strategic design questions and better define the problem to be solved. Concepts - Concepts are developed that meet the marketing requirements specified in the Product Requirement Document. Design and Prototyping - Over several iterations, the selected concept is developed into an Alpha Candidate Design.

At the beginning of the project we wanted to share with the other departments the HI process as well as the participation that we would need from them. HI knew fully well going into this project that we needed to have a tight team to pull this off. We wanted to clearly define the roles that each department would play as well as the dependencies that would affect the design. Though there were difficulties from Design to User Testing due to conflicting priorities, in the end the rigor of this process helped us to achieve a concrete design enthusiastically supported by all departments.

User Testing - Users from a selected demographic test the alpha candidate design.

Solution details

Important Design Requirements

Discovery Phase In the initial design phase, the Discovery, we analyzed the problems that we needed to solve and the process that would be in place to solve them. From this phase we prioritized the design requirements.

Virtual Private Network (VPN) Setup Network HotSync Capability During the Discovery phase we wanted to identify key design directions. One of the directions was the presence of a status bar, which did not exist in palmOne handhelds but was necessary to meet one of the product requirements, the display of a Wi-Fi strength signal.

Critical Design Requirements Out-of-Box experience for Tungsten C users who purchase at retail stores. Outlook/Windows compatibility 802.11b wireless connection must be seamless

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A. Possible view of early implementation

B. Potential direction of later implementation

Figure 3. Identifying early design requirements and direction. As shown in Screen A, a key design direction is to use the current Command Bar to display Power Management and Signal Strength indicator. This area can be brought up using the dedicated hard button on the keyboard.

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The most fundamental Discovery that still needed to be done at the end of this phase was the Corporate Strategy plans on developing the Enterprise Brand.

At this point in the process, the core team comprised of Engineering, HI, and Product Marketing. We were all in agreement on the direction of the design and the potential features we would need to support the proposed design.

Questions that still needed to be answered What is the Enterprise Brand? Do we differentiate from the Consumer brand through features and functionality alone? Or is there more, such as the User Interaction and different Out-of-Box experience? Other issues that still need to be resolved revolve around VPN, Security, and Network HotSync. Concept Phase Using the information gathered during the Discovery Phase we published the Concept Briefs for the different components of Tungsten C. The Concepts are usually done in Adobe Illustrator showing the framework or Information Architecture of the user process. The Concepts usually became the foundation on which the designs would succeed or fail. However, it did not dictate the design. The most important to define was the Out of Box (OOB) experience. The Concept phase is critical for the different departments to communicate and decide on a direction for the design. It was a way for HI to show the thought process that goes into the later designs and get early participation and input to the potential design. The other departments also relied on our Concept deliverables to build their work, such as the Feature Requirements Document (FRD).

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Figure 4. One part of Tungsten C’s early Concept/Information Architecture Development. This was not meant to show actual user interface but the loose idea of how a user might flow through the screens of our product given a certain task. Documents such as this was required to show the direction that HI was taking the design in and get sign-off from the core team. If there was something that the core team disagreed on or did not think was possible to implement this document was in place to identify those issues early on in the process.

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Design As the project progressed we knew that the most important factor of the Tungsten C was the Wi-Fi experience, from the first moment that the user turns on the handheld to the regular day to day interactions.

Design B (Wi-Fi Setup hidden under a Preference panel.) The test was done using the most basic out-ofbox Wi-Fi environment, a visible, non-encrypted network. What we observed proved to be instrumental in the direction of the design. When the Wi-Fi Setup was buried in a Preference, users would generally flail around in frustration trying to figure out a way to connect. Once they found the settings under the Network Preference, their discomfort level would rise. They did not want to change any aspect of a core network setting on the device that might completely incapacitate the device.

We looked at many competitors as well as the best of breed companies that were in the Wi-Fi space. While we learned a lot from this research our design had to be especially innovative because we had to create all the interactions in a more compact form. Most of the work went into the re-architecting of the Network preferences that the users would never or rarely have to see. The design strategy was very straightforward, “Keep It Simple.” We hid and buried the elements that were considered very technical and did not require the average users to interact with them. Most of the network connection could be done behind the scenes in an intelligent way that wouldn’t hinder the users with too many choices.

One of the key things that were revealed during the early tests was that people are techno phobic, when it came to anything network related. This tended to paralyze the users about what to do. Based on our findings we decided to make key design decisions. Wizard for configurations Users needed to be walked through the setup of Wi-Fi.

One of the issues that was debated over and over again was how visible we should make the Wi-Fi controls. There was a debate over whether or not we should have the Wi-Fi application right up front on our Home screen or hide it in the Preferences. This was the cause of contention of the designs early on. So many design concepts and approaches were proposed that we quickly realized that we needed to do a round of usability testing to learn what would work for our users.

Figure 5. Matter of contention

There should be a wizard type of setup for anything complex, such as Wi-Fi and VPN. The wizard should tie-in from the handheld setup The wizard should only comprise of the basic things that the majority of users would need. The wizard should reside on the home screen with full visibility Automate as much as possible

We decided to conduct a very focused test that essentially came down to a comparative analysis of Design A (Wi-Fi Setup in the Home Screen) vs.

Users will vary in their levels of technical proficiency, bury the more advanced features under Preferences for

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highly technical folks and automate/minimize configuration for non-technical folks.

However if the user was more technical they had all the features they needed as well.

Automatically discover any networks that were visible to the handheld and connect to it.

Network HotSync was another feature that was well reviewed by users. We changed the out-of-boxexperience of the Tungsten C so that during its first desktop HotSync, it would identify and store the PC Name or the IP Address of the computer that it was synching to. This way with the name or address stored users did not have to setup anything to get HotSync to work. All they had to do was switch from Local HotSync to Network HotSync and tap the button and synch wirelessly from anywhere. We also added a Network HotSync wizard that allows for the handheld to search for PCs that are on the same local network.

Save and store all aspects of a Wi-Fi network by default so that if users ever need to connect to it again they would not be required to re-enter information. Bury more technical features The average users do not need to know about TCP/IP nor long and short preamble, but for the IT folks in the enterprise companies that we were targeting this is crucial information. Through testing we found that more advanced/technical users went straight to Preferences. For them we provided all the features that they would need. Design Strengths At the time of the launch, there were no other handhelds in the market that could boast an easy to use Wi-Fi experience. Many did not even bother with creating a Wi-Fi only application; they left that to be handled by network preferences or system settings. We knew, from testing, people were afraid to change network settings, but they were buying this handheld for its Wi-Fi capabilities. We were the only ones, at the time, that separated out the experience for the users. Elevating just what the users needed to connect to their Wi-Fi network and burying the more technical aspects for people who truly knew what they were doing. We did not require that the average user have any knowledge of their network. We just required them to know how to use email and the web applications.

Figure 6. Network HotSync Wizard

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Figure 7. Screens diagrammed out in full detail. The Wi-Fi setup was a simple straightforward process that only required four screens that the user need to interact with.

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Results

assistant, choose network and you have established a connection. During a discussion in a conference we picked up emails via the access point in our office or read the headline from www.faz.net.”

At palmOne Inc. we measure our results by actual numbers of units sold. In the HI department we measure our results more closely by the critics and users response and there were an overwhelming response to the Tungsten C.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – June 6th, 2003 publication

The Tungsten C also won the editor’s choice award from Laptop Magazine in its May 2003 issue.

Industry Review: “The Tungsten C's most striking feature is its integrated support for 802.11b wireless networking—among the best we've seen on any mobile handheld. A Wi-Fi Setup utility stepped us through the process of configuring a wireless link, first scanning for available networks and then enabling us to set up a connection to an unscanned access point. We tested the Tungsten C with both Wired Equivalent Privacy-encrypted and nonprotected networks.”

Hindsight After going through the experience we all felt that the product would be a success as it was easy to set up and use. We had done extensive re-iterations and usability testing to design what we felt would be the best user experience with the given technical limitations and time constraints. However, real life users would be the ones to come back with the true results.

eWeek – April 28th, 2003 – “Palm's Power Play” By Jason Brooks

After the product launched we received quite a favorable response from critics and users alike. Where we fell short were things we could never have imagined. Real life Enterprise environments vary so drastically in their network settings and security protocols that we realized post launch that we were not as thorough with certain user scenarios, such as VPN usage. We had a VPN setup wizard but did not expect that users would re-enter this wizard to try to connect to VPN. We had expected people who used VPN on a daily basis on their laptops or desktops to be more aware of their actions, but this was not the case. We had buried the VPN control too deep for the average users. In hindsight, we would have kept the VPN wizard on the Home screen but also allow for easy connection from the Home screen as well.

“The built-in Wi-Fi Setup program made the whole setup a breeze. I was also able to HotSync my Palm T/C to my PC (ThinkPad laptop) using a network HotSync operation. Once again, the setup was a breeze. My Palm T/C was able to locate my home network, and once I set up the HotSync program (TCP/IP setup), the HotSync connection happened the first time I tried.” MemoWare.com – April 29th, 2003 – “Palm makes a bold statement with its PDA” By Kenneth Rhee

“The installation of Wireless-LAN worked surprisingly simple. People who are used to dedicate complete evenings for a building up of wireless connections will be surprised, how easy technology could be: access the

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One area that slightly frustrated users was the automatic connection to saved Wi-Fi networks. The handheld remembers which network you were last connected to and tries to connect you to that network. If it can’t find that network it will try to connect you to the previous network you connected to before that. This search and connect process takes about 2-3 seconds but still it was an unforeseen issue. The HI team had made assumptions that the Engineers would first sniff for all networks in an environment and if there was a match to a network with the one that the user had connected to before then it would try to connect to that one and only that one. We did not foresee the rolling through of the networks. Only after the product had launched did we realize the technical limitations that made this issue nearly impossible to resolve. If there is a hidden network, (a Wi-Fi network that does not broadcast out its name) it can’t be sniffed and found even though the user had connected to it previously. The only way for the handheld to know that that particular network exists is by trying to connect to it again.

device? We must, as a group, stop putting out products to incorporate the latest whiz-bang technical features. There is an untapped need in the majority of the population that this industry has not touched upon. We must think to ourselves what are those needs? Perhaps it may be the core PIM apps in a different form factor and usage models, perhaps not. Wi-Fi or mobile broadband connectivity maybe one of the true needs that people have in the future. Even now, there is definitely momentum towards it. Companies such as McDonald’s are making Wi-Fi accessible to their customers. Cities, such as Cerritos, California, in the US are becoming Wi-Fi enabled and providing Internet access within its borders. Wi-Fi can be to mobile handhelds what the Internet was for the desktop PC. A technology such as Wi-Fi can spur growth in the handheld industry. We must be in position to take full advantage of that.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Palm Design Team for all the excellent support during times of crisis. Thanks especially to Mark Davis for supporting me during the core team discussions, Rowy Shirk for keeping the project schedule and goals in line, and Chris Daniels for creating the initial prototype and conducting the first usability test. And a big thanks to Madeleine Francavilla who kept all the departments in check with her great project management skills.

The Industry Must Mature This foray into a non-PIM handheld has opened up palmOne Inc. to evaluate all the possibilities of what a handheld is truly capable of. The handheld market overall needs to revise it’s thinking of where it is heading. There needs to be an elevation from where the industry is today to more closely incorporate the lifestyles of the average person who currently does not own a handheld. What would make them buy such a

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