European Efforts to Make Mobile Phones Easier to Use
Representatives of Europe's largest telecommunication companies are having their chance to influence the development of user interfaces for mobile terminals and services at a workshop organized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) today in Munich, Germany. The meeting has been convened to build industry consensus as part of the preparation of an ETSI Guide (EG) which will simplify user interaction with mobile phones and services. Input from industry will ensure the guidelines to be drawn up are acceptable to manufacturers, operators and service providers, that they will benefit the end user, and therefore will be implemented.
Mobile telecommunication devices and services are one of the largest consumer product segments in the world. The development of telecommunications and information processing, combined with mobility and a growing use of the Internet, is leading to increasingly complex, interactive applications and services.
The meeting today is aimed at achieving a common understanding within the telecommunications industry of the benefits of harmonized solutions for the most common, basic level of user interaction, and to gain feedback on the draft guidelines. If the telecommunication industry standardizes basic, common user interface elements of mobile phones and services, making the means of operation similar across brands, users will be able to adapt more easily to the products of different manufacturers or suppliers. For the manufacturers, operators and service providers, this helps ensure a quicker development, deployment and uptake of key technologies and boosts market potential. The availability of common, basic interactive elements also increases the transfer of learning between devices and services and improves the overall usability of the entire interactive mobile environment. In addition, harmonized solutions help reduce development costs.
The new ETSI Guide EG 202 132, entitled 'Human Factors (HF): Generic user interface elements for mobile terminals and services', is being prepared by ETSI Specialist Task Force* (STF) 231. The STF will take account of comments received today, and a new draft is expected to be made available for public comment on 3 November 2003. After a period of extensive consultation and further development, the Guide will be completed by ETSI and published in October 2004.
Bruno von Niman, leader of STF 231, comments:
'Over half a million new subscribers sign up every day for mobile communication services - in addition to the one billion existing customers who are already using their mobile phones more and more frequently and extensively.
'The convergence of fixed and mobile information and communication technologies offers exciting new opportunities, creating an 'e-society' with services ranging from e-voting to e-shopping. The potential for improving life is enormous, but the technology is becoming increasingly complex to use. An effective e-society relies on the assumption that all users have access to these services. Ensuring this represents a major challenge for network operators, device manufacturers and service providers.
'The work of ETSI in STF 231 and its new Guide will help make mobile phones and services easier for the consumer to use, and more economical for the manufacturer to produce and the operator and service provider to supply.'
ETSI's work on user interfaces for mobile terminals supports the European Commission (EC) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in their eEurope initiative. This initiative aims to make Europe a competitive and dynamic economy, which fully exploits the opportunities offered by increasingly consumer-oriented, new technologies. To help achieve this, STF 231 has been funded by the EC and EFTA to accelerate the standardization necessary to simplify usage, to increase the uptake of interactive, digital communication technologies across Europe and to ensure that all Europeans are given the chance to use them.
The draft ETSI Guide EG 202 132, together with additional information, is available from: http://portal.etsi.org/STFs/HF/STF231.asp.
For further information about this news release, please contact:
Kevin Flynn
ETSI Press Office
Tel: +33 (0)4 9294 4258
E-mail: press@etsi.fr
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