A number of factors explain the rapid growth
and huge popularity of wireless in the region.
One is the large size of the population, and
the relatively high level of unsatisfied demand
for basic telecommunications access. Allied
to this is the historic circumstance that there
has not been notably heavy investment in traditional
wireline infrastructure in some Asian countries,
and for many individuals the mobile phone is
now a wireline phone substitute; in China the
number of wireless phones in use exceeded that
of wireline before the end of 2003, and India
reached the same position in October 2004.
A third consideration is that, while Asia in
general has previously lagged behind Europe
and the USA in terms of mass market adoption
of wireless, many societies in the region now
have demographics weighted towards young people,
the traditional earlier adopters of new technology.
Interestingly, ‘Asian Youth Mobile Trends:
Devices, Data and Multimedia' , a recent
report from the In-Stat/MDR research firm,
noted that the youth market was becoming a
significant driver for growth in the Asia-Pacific
region's mobile phone market, with around 10%
to 15% of all youth disposable income being
spent on mobile products in the most developed
countries.
Text And Data Boom
As the region's wireless markets become more
mature, almost by definition there is a levelling
off, or even decline, in the average revenue
per user (ARPU) that operators derive from ‘bread-and-butter'
voice services. Although it is possible and
practical to squeeze more out of voice through
new service innovation, better OSS/BSS and
the use of advanced network optimization, there
is some consensus that the next big opportunity
lies with data and with the multimedia services
facilitated by 3G. In this context, the In-Stat
report estimated that revenue generated from
SMS in the region grew 30.1% in 2004 and was
likely to continue to grow over the following
two years. Individual Asian country messaging
habits are quite remarkable with, for example,
Filipino users generating eight times more
SMS texts than voice calls. In the meantime,
according to ‘3G Developments in Asia/Pacific
(ex-Japan): No Turning Back' , a new Competitive
Analysis report from the IDC research company,
Asia-Pacific 3G subscribers were calculated
at 10.5 million in 2004, and were expected
to total 142.6 million in 2009, growing at
a CAGR of 68.5%.
Easy Does It
The commercial success and rate of adoption
of new types of wireless services is crucially
dependent on the quality of the wireless end-user
experience. Central to good user experience
- although sometimes left out of the equation
- is the accessibility and ease of use of the
services. In turn, service accessibility hinges
upon the User Interface (UI) of the mobile
phone.
Here, a problem is apparent. The traditional
UI of the mobile phone is the twelve-button
keypad modelled on the 1960s push-button wireline
telephone. While this is ideally suited to
making phone calls, the traditional keypad
is much less suitable for accessing non-voice
services and applications, and even sending
a simple text message requires multiple key
presses. Such tasks become considerably more
difficult when users are trying to navigate
their way through more complex services and
applications. The menu-driven methodology traditionally
used in mobile phones means the user must track
through multiple screens - with all the attendant
key presses - in order to access a particular
service. Not only is this a lengthy and tedious
process, but it's also extremely limiting as
users are unable to stray away from the menu
and are thus prevented from discovering other
services that they might find interesting and
attractive.
A growing body of research
supports the proposition that the difficulty
of using conventional mobile phone keypads
significantly restricts the uptake of non-voice
services. As an example, in a survey carried
out by Wacom Components in November 2004, 85%
of respondents admitted to being ‘too
dumb' to access or use mobile services, mainly
because of increased device complexity, and
nearly three quarters felt that handsets had
become too difficult to navigate around. Again,
despite 78% of consumers owning handsets able
to access data-centric mobile services such
as games, ring tones and information services,
only a third of consumers were using them and,
of these, 76% were not using them as they were
too complex to access and operate. Wacom also
found that if handset manufacturers were to
simplify mobile phone usability, 55% of consumers
said they would be encouraged to use more mobile
services.
Textbook Solutions
In light of such findings, and given the recent
growth and massive future potential of wireless
text, data and multimedia services in the region,
it's not surprising that Asia-Pacific is at
the very forefront of developments in cell
phone UI technology and commercialization.
Zi Corporation, an Asian and global intelligent
interface specialist, is a pioneer of wireless
phone UI technologies designed to simplify
access to non-voice services, enhance the user
experience of those services, and help to boost
service provider ARPUs.
Predictive text input technologies
such as Zi's eZiTap and eZiText solutions are
already having a major impact on messaging
habits in the Asia-Pacific region, and represent
a dramatic improvement on the entry level mobile
phone text input mechanisms dubbed 'multi-tap'
(otherwise known as ABC mode) and its successor ‘single
tap'.
Multi-tap requires the user to press the keys
on his or her cell phone keypad between one
and four times to select consecutive letters
that make up each word being entered. This
is the slowest and most labor-intensive method
of composing a text message, and a major obstacle
to increased service use. On a conventional
keypad the word 'tomorrow' , for example,
would require 18 key presses. Single tap, in
which each key is pressed once for the required
letter, is an advance on multi-tap, but even
then 'tomorrow' requires eight key
presses.
Predictive text input offers a much improved
user interface for texting. In essence, predictive
text uses intelligent software to calculate
and complete candidate words, decoding keystrokes
and comparing the letters entered against words
in a phone's internal dictionary.
Today predictive text systems 'learn' and
'remember' which words are most frequently
used, further speeding up the predictive and
completion processes. To continue with the
previous example, using eZiText 'tomorrow' could
be input with only four keystrokes, a reduction
of over 400% in effort compared to standard
multi-tap. The companion eZiTap solution, which
is complimentary to the basic and familiar
multi-tap entry system, allows entry of formal
words as well as slang terms without having
to switch between multi-tap and predictive
text entry modes. This is good news for users
who like to compose messages with personal
vocabulary, such as the important Asian youth
market. Quantifying the value of this particular
market sector, In-Stat/MDR estimates that spending
in the Asia-Pacific region by youth on mobile
data services reached US$15.2 billion in 2004,
and the company projects a revenue growth rate
of 15.3% annually from 2004 to 2010.
The Write Stuff
Another approach to easier and faster mobile
phone message input and data usage that's attracting
tremendous interest in Asia-Pacific involves
the use of handwriting recognition software
such as Zi's Decuma. In practice the use of
handwriting as an interface on a mobile device
such as a PDA or mobile phone is becoming increasingly
important as Asia's evolution to 3G multimedia
applications and services gains traction. The
Decuma handwriting recognition software provided
by Zi delivers a unique, patented user interface
design that mimics how a person would write
on paper. A single input area is used for writing
and presenting recognized letters and editing
the text. This makes input natural and fast,
and allows the user to focus on the content
rather than the writing. Editing is done directly
in the input area using intuitive gestures
to delete, insert one or several characters
and overwrite misinterpreted characters. Decuma
is available in a number of languages using
the Latin alphabet, and in Chinese and Japanese
scripts.
Quick's The Word
A third type of intelligent technology helping
Asia users get the most out of their mobile
phones, and in the process boosting the take-up
of non-voice services, is discovery engine
software. A revolutionary addition to this
type of solution is Zi's Qix, introduced earlier
this year. Combining patented technology and
a unique, proprietary indexing engine, Qix
significantly reduces the number of key presses
needed to use a mobile phone's full set of
services and features and eliminates the need
to scroll through complex menu systems. As
such it can greatly enhance the user experience
for the subscriber, and simultaneously drive
service usage and adoption resulting in greater
ARPU for the operator.
Qix utilizes all the information stored in
the mobile phone to automate the presentation
of the relevant options available to the user.
When in the phone screen for dialling a number
on the keypad, Qix begins interpreting the
possible combinations of the letters and numbers
entered, and presents the user with a list
of options, including: phonebook contacts,
browser bookmarks, installed applications,
operator-customized services, help files and
more. In most cases, after just three to four
key presses, the desired option is presented.
No Use
As Asia's wireless markets become more text- and data-centric, the need to
simplify and improve the mobile phone UI is getting more and more urgent.
To this end major contributions are being made with the inclusion on mobile
phones of advanced intelligent software capabilities such as predictive texting,
handwriting translation and discovery engines. Regardless of how compelling
any new generation wireless application is, if it's not easy to use, people
just won't use it.
