Providing Premium SMS Services for Mobile Phones

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper we argue for the need to expand from a perspective on a single user -developer relation in designing usability to a perspective on usability as dependent on a multi-layered and distributed network of relations between multiple and diverse actors. Based on an empirical study of the successful premium SMS services for mobile phones in the Norwegian market we make explicit the user -developer relationships related to usability in a service providing context. We describe this context with a network perspective based on the specific concepts of value networks (Stabell and Fjellstad 1998). This rich analytical perspective appreciates the critical aspects of the service providing context and provides support in solving the primary usability challenges related to premium SMS services.Keywords: Premium SMS services; usability; value networks; user -developer relationships. INTRODUCTIONFrom a system development perspective premium SMS services for mobile phones are rather simple and mundane. The focus of this paper is to introduce a different perspective on these services, making explicit new, important and indeed motivating challenges for system developers. To make these issues explicit we discuss the nature of the service providing context, the challenges of designing usability in this context and how these challenges should be appreciated and handled.In general premium SMS services are under-researched and the concept of mobile services is in itself vaguely defined (Sorensen et al. 2002 Anckar and D'Incau 2002;van de Kar et al. 2003). These contributions do however primarily focus on describing state-of-the art services and business models. They do not focus on how services are provided, the constituencies of the networks they are based on and how usability challenges are handled.In 1997, premium SMS services for mobile phones were in Norway solely developed and provided by mobile network providers. Today, the situation is a different one as premium SMS services are based on a network of actors making up the final service to the end-users (mobile phone subscribers) with the required usability. These services are not only enabled by the transportation of content from the content producers to the end-users, but also services supporting acquisition, aggregation, market-wide-access, advertising, copyright handling etc. The system developers engaged in developing and providing these services do however have inadequate support in current system development methods. These methods are primarily supporting the technical development of software as packages, and not providing services within a context where there is more than one given user -developer relation, relations that have to be created and continuously maintained to create the necessary usability for the end-user.In this paper we contribute with insights in a relatively novel context for system development. As this context involves a different nature of relations between users and developers, it also requires new approaches to usability design. In...