Design the Right Thing: 2009 Mobile User Experience Conference

By Elizabeth Roche - November 23, 2009

A grey but unseasonably warm November greeted the Mobile User Experience conference in London this week.

Richard Lewis of Orange made a persuasive case that Orange 'gets' the concept of User Experience at the highest levels of the company. They've adopted the motto: “Design the right thing before we design the thing right” and have come to terms with the notion that in this post-iPhone world, personalization and customization are in the customer's hands and not the operators. They view their work from a service ecosystem perspective and are moving from product centric to customer centric. Among other things this means removing irrelevant services and products from the customer's path. Now, for the crowning jewel, they think about the entire customer journey from 'become aware' to 'leave'. Yes, they want people who choose to leave Orange to have a pleasant experience doing so, in the hopes that they will consider coming back someday. To someone who has worked in UX on the operator side for years, the thinking isn't new. That it's been accepted at the highest levels of the company is only moderately new. Executives have jumped on to the UX train in droves post-iPhone, but not all of them understand there's more to it than sitting down for a comfy ride. They will need to survive the 'bright shiny object' syndrome and the 'we need something big for next month' demand. It takes vision, focus, and patience to get it right.

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