Although linear textual menus are a widely adopted solution in the mobile phone user interfaces, alternatives that would take smaller amount of screen real estate exist, e.g. toolbars and pie menus. Pie menus also provide access to functions with fewer key presses than traditional Options menu but are best suited for expert users. We compared toolbars and pie menus as a way to access most often used functions of a mobile media player. Based on user test results, we selected pie menus for implementation into a prototype and made another user test to see what kind of design considerations are related to pie menus for digital joysticks. The user feedback was positive and six design issues were identified.

In this paper, we describe how we used user studies, interviews and ethnographic methods to create a set of general design drivers for media consumption in a mobile context of use, and applied them to a particular media domain: data enhanced mobile FM radio. We designed and evaluated a number of application concepts on showing FM radio program related information in different parts of the mobile phone UI. Our evaluation results showed that users wanted to quickly and easily see at least the artist and the song name of the current playing song. We also show that it is beneficial to use general design drivers to assist domain specific design work.

In this paper we propose an optimal information architecture model for mobile multimedia devices. In our study we first reviewed the information architecture models of four currently popular mobile multimedia devices, Apple iPod Video, Nokia N80, Sony Ericsson W800i and Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). Then we used Open card sorting method to find out what kind of mental models does people have for optimal information architecture model. Finally we compared these two study results together and created a design proposal.

In this paper we describe our research on unified media experience for the end-users. The research focused on unified mobile media player supporting different media types with one unified UI structure and design for all media types. The created UI structure and design was based on our earlier study of finding an optimal information architecture model for mobile multimedia devices. Unified mobile media player demo was then implemented and validated in Finland and Hong Kong, and after analyzing the validation findings the UI structure and design were updated. Our research findings show that there are similarities between different media types, and it is possible to create unified UI structure and design, but also some media type specific restrictions exists.

In this paper we present research results from the three design and evaluation rounds for creating unified media functions set for a media player running on a mobile multimedia device. The aim of the unified media functions is to provide a set of media functions consisting from playback control, media functions and media switching states that would work similarly for different media type. Our research results look promising for providing unified functions for different media types and also the proposed set has proved to be future proof for new mobile media types, social media aspects and new UI styles.