Bringing the Mobile Context into Industrial Design and Development

In this paper we discuss the dynamic nature of mobile usage, and how this impacts on design and evaluation, particularly in an industrial setting. We argue that current industry oriented design tools need to be extended to cater more effectively to the highly dynamic and context-dependent nature of mobile usage -- we suggest more focus should be put on doing instead of on being. In order to achieve this we suggest a lightweight design/insight tool developed to suit industrial practice: context cards. These cards allow designers, developers, and usability experts to perform lightweight explorations of the consequences of a range of mobile situations.