Need mobile statistics or charts for your presentation?  Mobile Planet offers a wide variety of international statistics about the use of mobile devices.   They also offer the opportunity to create custom charts and to download the entire dataset.

Marcus Turner and Sanjay Nasta delivered Roadmap to Mobile Learning at E-Learning Symposium 2012 in Austin. Missed it? Want to learn what’s new in the rapidly changing world of mobile learning? Sign up below and we will email you when we have the webinar scheduled.

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Marcus Turner and Sanjay Nasta presented Roadmap to mLearning at E-Learning Symposium 2012 in Austin, TX.   A central point is that with the rapid growth of mobile devices organizations need to develop a mobile learning strategy. The video below highlights the rapid growth of mobile as well the growth of mobile in learning.

I recently got to attend mLearnCon 2012 in San Jose conference–a conference focused on the future of mobile learning.   It was great to finally meet industry luminaries and hear from industry luminaries such as Clark Quinn, Congrad Gottfredson, and Judy Brown.  The keynote speakers–BJ Fogg and Jason Calacanis got some strong new ideas started (slowly working on blog posts based on their presentations).     My first blog post from the conference is a list of recommended mobile learning books.

Meanwhile David Kelly, master curator of learning conferences has put together a backchannel of mLearnCon 2012 curated resources.

When you are designing a user interface for a mobile device whether it is a smartphone or a table you have to adjust the design for screen size, and the change from a point and click interface on a computer to a gesture based interface. As the popularity of mobile devices grows – “Tap has become the new click” (Dan Saffer, Kicker Studio)

Gesture: Any physical movement that can be responded to by a digital system without the aid of a traditional input device such as a mouse or stylus

So what does the move to a gesture based interface imply for interface design?

Gesture based interface design is driven by the concept of direct manipulation of digital objects on a screen–similar to mouse based GUI interfaces. The finger, however, is not a direct replacement for a mouse. For example, It is not as precise in pointing to a particular object. Unlike a mouse a finger can move directly from point to point.

Vocabulary of Gesture Based Design

First the basic vocabulary of gesture based design. The common gestures used in smartphone and tablet design are:

• Tap: Tapping on the screen a signle time To press or select a control or item equivalent to a mouse click
• Double Tap: To zoom in and center a block of content or image. To zoom out if already zoomed in. Note this is not equivalent to a double click.
• Flick: To scroll or pan quickly you merely do the flick gesture on the tablet. In gesture based design you do not have to have scroll bars. You use the content as the interface. A concept you’ll see below
• Drag: To scroll or pan in a controlled manner touch and drag. Again the content is the interface saving screen space.
• Swipe: Pointing to an object and swimping is sometimes used to delete an object. This is a less common element.
• Pinch Close: Use tw fingers to pinch close is commonly used to zoom out
• Pinch Open: Use two fingers to pinch open is commonly used to zoom in
• Touch and Hold: In editable text, displays a magnified view for cursor positioning
• Two-finger scroll: Touch with two fingers and drag is used to scroll up and down within a content area

Want a more visual view? Apple has kindly put together a gesture guide for their products with videos of each gesture.

Gesture Design Tips

How do we design for interactive gestures. Here are a few tips to get started.

• Avoid putting essential features or information like a label below an interface element that can be touched, as it may become hidden by the user’s own hand.
• Create reasonably sized touch targets (no smaller than 1 cm a bit more than a 1/3 of an inch).  Two methods for decreasing the size of touch targets are
• Iceberg Tips: Controls that have larger targets than is visible–in other words you can tap anywhere around a button and it will still count as selecting the button. The implication is that you have more space between objects.
• Adaptation: Adaptive targets are created by guessing the next item the user will touch and increase the touch target appropriately. It is why the iPhone can get away with 5 mm targets for the keyboard.
• UI elements that do not work the same and should be avoided in   touch based gesture interfaces include:
• Cursors: In a gesture based interface a user is not constantly pointing at something. A finger moves from point to point.
• Mouseovers and hovers: Neither can be detected through touch screens
• Double-Click: Although double click can be done it should be used with cautions.
• Right-Click: Using a Right-click to bring up another option is physically difficult (or impossible) for the user and goes against the direct manipulation philosophy of touch interfaces.
• Drop Down Menus: Again drop down menus go against the direct manipulation philosophy of touch interfaces.
• Selected default buttons
• Undo: It is hard to do an undo gesture once a gesture is done. Provide an easy way to cancel the action.
• The more complicated the gesture the fewer people that will use it. An example of this is the two finger tap to  zoom.
• A corrolary–If gestures are not obvious to the user they need to be clearly communicated.

Resources for Tablet and Smartphone Interface Design

Dan Saffer’s lecture at Stanford on Gesture Interface design is worth watching.

• Tap is the new click
• Gesture Based Computing
• Designing Gestural Interfaces
• Touchscreen Stencils

Extra Credit: Fitts Law

AskTog.com defines Fitts’s Law as “The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target”

A larger object closer to a user is easier to point to than a larger object further away. Visual targets should be designed to be close to the user to avoid reaching across the interface. Objects to be manipulated should be large enough to accomodate a human finger.

Are you a visual learning?  Particle Tree has a good visualization of Fitts Law at:

Read Wikipedia’s Article on Fitts Law

The number of all mobile devices accessing the Internet  worldwide will surpass 1 billion by 2013. In addition,  the number of users of mobile devices will also double by the end of the year!  The mobile Internet is ramping up exponentially faster than the desktop Internet did or will ever realize.   This dramatic increase in adoption of mobile devices such as smart-phones and tablets has crystallized a collective focus on mobile learning (mLearning), specifically, how to best leverage the mobile platform for training and extended learning.  Training thought leaders need to plan today for anywhere/anytime training  using mobile devices.   Mobile learning, initiatives need to be driven as an extension of business and learning initiatives and just  not by the “shiny penny” syndrome.

Why mLearning?

Leveraging the mobile presence, device capabilities and unique extended learning potential of mobile platforms is essential.  There is little to no valid argument (any more) that training needs to be extended to the mobile platform, but the best use of this environment depends on your overall organizational needs and drivers.  Some common drivers include:

• Ease of Access.  The mobile device, unlike desktop computers (or even laptops), is always available.   Even more than your American Express card,  you don’t leave home without it.  The high availability of mobile devices allows extends  training by allowing for delivery at the right place and right time.
• Convenience.  Even office workers are not at their desk over 30% of the time.   mLearning allows learners  to fit learning into their lifestyle, consuming training at locations other than their desk and use their time more effectively.   Smart-phones and tablets are personal, private and familiar devices and reduce the barriers to learning.
• Just in Time/Place Training.  Mobile training allows learners to access training when they need it and just as importantly where they need it.   Flying out to a customer site and need to learn more about a particular solution your company sells—a mobile learning solution allows for learning at the airport.  At a plant, working on fixing a machine—a mobile training solutions allows a tech to pull up the process or even send a photo or video to  an off-site engineer to help.
• Connection to Environment.  Smart-phones can offer a strong connection to the trainee’s environment.  Most devices are location and orientation aware through their GPS.   These devices typically also have cameras with video capabilities that allow trainees to interact with their environment.  For example, you can set up location aware training that discusses the history of a particular location.   We have used device cameras to read QR codes attached to an object (just about any object)  that direct the learner to more information specific to that object.
• Social Learning.  Smartphones offer strong capabilities to enable social learning.    Sharing of  multiple modes/formats of information (email, instant messages, SMS, MMS, photos, and videos)  with  the trainees social network is easy on mobile devices since most of them have apps dedicated to those functions.

What changes are coming to mLearning?

Changes in mLearning are being driven by the increased capability of mobile devices.  mLearning was initially learning delivered on smartphones/PDA—not necessarily full online courses but bits of just in time training—videos, audio podcasts, quick tips, etc.

Tablets, such as the iPad, are changing some of the parameters of mLearning.   The additional screen real-estate (quickly approaching the capabilities of the desktop PC), the ease of using the tablet interface, significantly greater processing power allow us to deliver more types of training and media than ever before.   We can also now reuse content meant for desktop browsers, but extended to further utilize the device and user interaction benefits that are unique within the mobile environment.

Furthermore, content creation systems are becoming available that allow you to create and re-purpose content for mobile devices.   Learning Management Systems allow you to deliver, measure and report on learning for mobile devices.   Mobile Learning is becoming easier to create and use as the  infrastructure for creating and managing content on these devices becomes available.

It is a great time for learning departments to experiment and learn about mobile learning.  Do remember like any other learning project mobile learning projects must be driven by business goals.

Atomic Axis’ founders Marcus Turner and Sanjay Nasta are speaking about mobile learning at E-Learning Symposium 2012 Austin.  Atomic Axis is also a sponsor at the conference.   We feel that anytime/anywhere learning is going to be one of the most important uses of mobile devices in the next five years.   Unfortunately, clear guidance for creating effective mobile learning has been missing.  In this session, we will go through the mobile learning framework and provide a clear roadmap to creating effective learning.

Topics covered include:

• Why mobile learning?
• Mobile Learning Framework
• Learning Methodology
• Technology Considerations
• Case Studies: Lessons from successful implementers