Microsoft needs to make Windows Mobile more user friendly

[Guest urdone311]

Yes I know WE may not think so since we are such computer nerds and what not,

But what about the average user?

Maybe people in the U.S. aren't as technically savvy as they are over in Europe, but your normal consumer will find MS smartphone difficult to figure out.

For example, my ex girlfriend bought the MPX200 because I told her she NEEDS to. She thinks its cool and all, but she's not the smartest when it comes to computer stuff.

I think it would be good if MS made some type of "easy mode" or something of the likes, filled with wizards for setting up email and what not. The wizards could actually be run by software on the computer itself, and through activesync it would fill in the information automatically. (such as setting up email, alarm clock settings, ringtones, homescreen backgrounds, etc. etc. etc.).

The wizard would setup the phone, and then there would be software on the computer still in which it would guide you through transferring MP3's, ringtones, pictures, etc. etc.

Many people will find using Explorer a bit dull and not user-friendly. I'm talkin' something with visuals and cool graphics to walk them through it...

A lot of people here in the U.S. have actually taken their MPX200's back because it was too "complicated" for them.

May sound stupid, but like i said- not everyone is as cool as us. :)

[Guest pisquee]

One of the things I was thinking about earlier this week was for MS to release a Windows Mobile Light Edition - i.e. that was simplified to the common user, ie. would only do normal type things like be a phone, text messages and that kind of stuff. Have it cheaper for manufacturers to put into their phones, so you could have an inexpensive Smartphone available - not everyone needs Internet Explorer or Outlook on their phones, or a camera, or an mp3 player ... but I reckon that this is the biggest market share of cell phone users ... there is money to be made. Most users are going to be happy with a Nokia 3310 (or similar) and don't want or need at Nokia 6000 or 7000 series phone - the same is true for MS - Have phones (and OS) available and aim for as much market as possible.

[Guest squall]

i disagree with the need for a cut down os. The basic features of the smartphone - ie the ones you'd expect from a noika etc are all fairly simple. it only gets complicated when you start doing things you wouldnt be able to do on most other phones...

[Guest kelv23]

I (WE) am in no way a computer nerd,i can type OK know how to surf the web etc but I don't know a dingle from a dongle or whatever they are and I seem to get on OK with a smartphone and would class myself as the "average user",mostly through the help of the guys in this forum.as for your girlfriend not being able to use it well that just seems like you've given her some bad advice on what phone to get, maybe she didnt NEED one afterall.if you feel so strongly about the wizard why not try and come up with one yourself maybe you could make some cash out of it and make everyone feel as "cool" as us.......

[Guest kelv23]

i disagree with the need for a cut down os. The basic features of the smartphone - ie the ones you'd expect from a noika etc are all fairly simple. it only gets complicated when you start doing things you wouldnt be able to do on most other phones...

ditto.....

[Guest Taoski]

For example, my ex girlfriend bought the MPX200 because I told her she NEEDS to.  She thinks its cool and all, but she's not the smartest when it comes to computer stuff.  

And then when she hates it... you get to swap!

Hooray! Reminds me of the time when my work colleague bought his wife a CDRom drive for her xmas pressie! lol. Needless to say.. They are now divorced

[Guest kalinte]

when i got my first pc ( PII 350 1994). that was my first impression too. damn! this thing is complicated. i wont even dare change my settings for fear it might break down. but now (athlon 2600) i sometimes take it apart for a good cleaning. and i'm no computer geek too. just like the SPV the longer you use it the better it gets.

[Guest davo141]

yeah, but one wrong turn on ya phone.. almost always means a reset. losing everything. do you want to risk that? changing one little thing, can mean funking ya phone up

[Guest Crispy]

I've heard there's been talk of making a "mom mode" aka a mode in which even your mother could operate it ... The mom mode should then hide advanced features and feature more onscreen instructions than the normal mode ... One should then be able to change back annd forth between the modes in bootloader or whatever ...

Sounds like a brilliant idea to me! ... Maybe a "Hardcore" mode too? :wink:

[Guest glynton]

I sell phones, and I half-agree with the cut down OS. MOST people dont want to spend ages reading instructions, going to web forums and what not to be able to use their phone. They wanna get a good looking, small, easy to use, few games and something newer than the one they've got at the mo. There are lots of people out there that if they saw my old SPV would say "Hey wow! That's amazing. but i'd probably never use it." Sure it's cool, and we use it, but the joe public dont. BUT if microsoft cut down their OS, then their phones would just be phones. Not smartphones, which is what microsoft want.

I'll be honest now and say that I chose a P900 over an E200. And the main differences in terms of what I want in a MOBILE would be that when you get an SMS it doesn't matter what app you're running, or what the phone is doing, it doesn't crash or slow down AT ALL. When you have multimedia files on your phone, you can actually manage the files within the applications, say i'm in the camera app, i just change the folder that the vids are saved to with two taps. It just makes sense. Now on a MS SP, if you're playing a vid, or mp3, the mp3 starts to stutter, or the vid freezes for a about 5 secs before the sms buzzer goes off. It's small things like this that people will be frustrated by. However, a 'Mum-mode' might free up resources and not cause this kind of problem which is why it's a good idea, but I dont think MS would be happy to change their beloved Smartphone into a Dumbphone.

My personal suggestion would be in marketing. Letting people know via adverts what they're 'missing' by not having a smartphone. Imagine a TV ad that almost follows on from Nokia's ad about a year and a half ago saying that 'One day you'll be able to watch movies on your phone' and going one better and saying "Hey everyone, you can do this already!". Now this MUST be backed up with PC side software. The current methods for getting movies onto your phone is far too complicated for everyone. Who wants to bother about frame rates and bitrates? Just one app that comes in the phone's box that nice and easily converts and transfers a movie in your DVD drive to your phone.

I apologise if any of my comments are a little out-of-date but I'm going on my year's experience of the SPV and the limited time i spent with an E200 (in comparison with the Joyfull 3 months i've spent with my P900 so far)

Glynton

[Guest Disco Stu]

Excellent post Glynton.

My two-penn'orth is that there is some synergy with this thread and the CustomCabbage service. Registry tweaking is scary for most people and shouldn't be necessary.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest urdone311]

The best idea would be for it to come with the phone as a CD...which would install activesync etc and you could CHOOSE whether or not you want the software wizrds or not.

Why not have the option?

[Guest morpheus2702]

Could they offer two viewing modes like Windows XP - i.e. the 'moron mode' with all the 'what do you want to do' questions and the 'windows classic' mode for those familiar with Windows.

But I think the basic question is flawed - I think most users would just appreciate an OS that is more responsive (i.e. much better reaction time to keypresses), more logical (e.g. settings under one unified section) and maybe a nice graphical interface to sit over the Program menu.

Playing with my mate's T610 yesterday I realised how much I missed a phone that just WORKED and worked WELL, albeit without half the functionality of my Smartphone. Things happened when you pressed buttons (not 5 seconds later) - taking a photo was a button press, MMSing was SO easy...

[Guest Scarfman007]

- I think most users would just appreciate an OS that is more responsive (i.e. much better reaction time to keypresses), more logical (e.g. settings under one unified section) and maybe a nice graphical interface to sit over the Program menu.

Symbian UIQ? (or even Series 60 - in most people's eyes I think even this classifies as easier to use than SMP) Things are much more responsive and more logical (read glynton's post). The screen is much bigger and the thing is less bulky and lighter than my SPV.

Scarfman

[Guest Taoski]

That is my only complaint with Smartphone - too slow - too long to wait - but i am prepared to.

I have a go the other day on my mums 3310!.... wow - that thing is quick!

I have kinda forgot how fast these other phones are after nearly a year of a Canary SPV.

Almost makes me want to get a different platform....

The thing i use most is the MP3 player... what other phone offer this functionality though? (That are any good).

[Guest biffsmash]

I've had my SPV e200 almost since it came out, and tbh, its a hell of a lot faster than my old nokia 3650.

In my honest opinion, the problem is not the complexity of the smartphone, its the fact that people find it incredibly hard to change to something new.

When we first had our brand new nokia, i'm sure it was all just as alien to us as the smartphone is to some people now.

People have been using nokia's (motorola's eriksons etc etc) for many years and are used to how they look and feel. When i use a sony erikson or a motorola i'm a little confused and it takes me time to find some of the features I would of found in a second on a nokia or my smartphone.

Simply five minutes looking through the manual to find the simple features needed to send and recieve texts and make calls, is all thats needed if its even needed at all. A little time and patience.

To be honest, most people probably don't NEED a smartphone, and so find them confusing. Someone who really wants all the features in the phone, will take the time and effort needed to learn how to use it.

I look through the manual with every new phone to find all the small things I might not of realised it could do, even if I know 99% of whats in the manual, I still read them.

biff.

[Guest [email protected]]

I think the Mum-Mode is an excellent idea! Sure not all people NEED a Smartphone, but shouldn't Microsoft make people who don't need one WANT one? There's got to be a huge amount of people who are just a little too intimidated by the complexity of a Smartphone to actually get one.

[Guest Scarfman007]

Almost makes me want to get a different platform....

The thing i use most is the MP3 player... what other phone offer this functionality though?  (That are any good).

Pretty much any OS that claims to be 'Smart' - Palm OS, Symbian and Smartphone.

Plam OS doesn't multi-task though, so you wouldn't be able to do other stuff whilst multi-tasking. Symbian Series 60 - most phones only support mono sound output ( :roll: !), Symbian UIQ - stereo output and far better multi-tasking (P800 can do pretty much anything whilst listening to MP3s without stutter - and there are a few audio players out there to choose from).

Hope that helps,

Scarfman

[Guest TANKERx]

One problem with the MS Smartphone is that it says that it's just like "Windows on your desktop", which will give people an instant frame of thought which, when they get to using a Microsoft Smartphone, will cause confusion and frustration because it's not at all like Windows on the desktop.

When people approach a phone, they think "this is a phone, that is a menu, let's start from here", but when they come to a Microsoft phone, the first thing they ask is "where's the Start button?", "where's the taskbar?", "where's outlook" and so on.

I think that MS needs to drop this "It's Windows on a phone" nonsense and just come up with something designed for a phone, like Symbian and the various UIs that it runs. My mom (or 'mam' as we say in Wales) just picked up a 7650 and pretty much used it straight off. Take a photo? Just press 'Camera', no need to wade through menus. Want to move an application to a different folder? No need for a File manager, just click on the application you want to move and tell it where to go.

MS is great for geeks, but mank for mums.

[Guest morpheus2702]

That is the main thrust of Microsoft's marketing strategy - pushing the Windows brand at everyone, for everything. They changed the name from Smartphone 2002 to Windows Mobile (for Smartphone) 2003 because they believe that Windows has a greater resonance with users.

But you have got it pretty much spot on - there really isn't that much in common with Windows for the PC. I bought my E100 because of what it could do and its connectivity with a PC - I can't say that I give two jots about it having a 'Windows-style' interface.

[Guest BrAGoL]

MS is great for geeks, but mank for mums.

you said it right... one who's not that exposed to desktop pc would surely be having a hard time tinkering with Smartphone... imagine just a mis-interpretation of a cab file as an ordinary zip file...

[Guest biffsmash]

Smartphones can quite easily be asigned quick keys for common functions, and like i say, its simply getting used to the menus.

Someone mentioned their mom picked up a nokia 7650 and could use it stright away because the camera was one press away and away she goes. Well thats fine, but so is the camera on the spv e200. Its the red button on the side.

All of the functions your average user will need are in the first screen menu of the phone in plain text, inbox, call register, camera etc etc. If you can read, you can find what you want.

(apologies to anyone who may not be able to read, no offence meant :)

At least you dont have to learn the silly icons on nokia's rediculous os (see 3650, 7650 etc). Oh and I had a 7650 which I gave away, and have a 3650 and loved it when I used it, but its slow and awkward to use imo.

I gave my mom my old E100 a few days ago, and she can do all she needs, which is place calls, see who's called if she misses the call, and receive calls. Which is great as on her V50 motorola I couldnt even find who had called her once it had gone from the screen.

I'm sorry, but anyone who cant use the simple phone functions on the SPV at the very least with 2 mins of tutorial from someone who knows (and dont tell me your moms could all pick up their very first mobile phone and use it without any help from the manual or from u!!!), should stick to the "simple" nokias.

If you don't need all the funtions of a smartphone, why should you have to pay for them if you wont use them.

disclaimer: this is simply my opinion, and if I sound uncaring of moms, this is purely coincidental as I do have a mom myself lol

biffy :D

[Guest glynton]

(apologies to anyone who may not be able to read, no offence meant  

If they couldn't read, they wouldn't have read your post anyway!

[Guest morpheus2702]

Then again, Mum's don't tend to be the world's fastest texters or diallers of numbers, so I would have thought the SPV would have been ideal... e.g. press key - 5 minutes later wait until it comes up on screen, press another key... :wink:

[Guest biffsmash]

If they couldn't read, they wouldn't have read your post anyway!

lol thanks for that! someone could be reeading it for em! or someone could know someone who cant read! hehe :)