Wow, yet another technogenic diagnosis. (If medically induced illness is iatrogenic, and illness of unknown origin is cryptogenic, then technology induced illness should be technogenic, right?)

Email apnea. Awesome. You can bet I’ll be making my own covert observations around home and office to see if it’s in evidence.

Any theories as to the cause of the breath-holding? Is it a bracing for possible bad news in the mail? A natural process relating to composing words in the mind?

Is breath-holding or erratic breathing seen in other composition scenarios?

File it right there between Blackberry thumb and typographically induced nystagmus.

Seen at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona:

Stop the presses!

The average Google query now consists of 4 words and not 3! That’s up for the first time ever as of Q4 2007, from the long-time 3 word per query Google user average. [via beu blog]

That’s big news, indeed. What does this byte tell us? You can see this from a couple of angles:

• Users are getting savvier about creating refined search queries.
• Users are getting less tolerant of skimming through many pages of search results to get the information they seek.

Now ask the question: if the average search query on a mobile device is ten letters or two words (whichever comes first), isn’t it likely that results will be less refined or focused on mobile devices? Given the exceedingly limited screen real estate available to display those results, isn’t that lack of refinement implicated at least in part in the frustration of using a mobile device for search?

I gave a couple of presentations (in Helsinki and Tel Aviv) on this subject last year, and the data just keeps flowing in to back up the arguments I made then.

Well, we’re back from Barcelona, and what a wonderful trip it was. The panel discussion in which I participated was standing room only, attended by over 300 people. What a pity that the report upon which most blogs are relying was so determined to find us panelists confounded. Ah, well.

We were five panelists, representing different segments of the mobile industry: Lucia Predolin of Buongiorno (content provider), Mike Yonker of Texas Instruments (chipset manufacturer), Anup Murarka of Adobe Systems (interface environment), Marc Steen of TNO (ethnographic and user research), and moi. Bruno Bensaid of MobileMonday Shanghai ably moderated (venture capital).

Despite coming from very different directions, we all agreed that User Experience is going to be the prime driver of the mobile industry going forward. That alone should highlight the importance of all things usability. Each of us offered insight and direction for improving User Experience at the level of our influence, which (to me) painted a powerful picture of how much room there really is for truly great interface to be designed. I hope that others enjoyed the session and learned as much from it as I did.

Attending the Mobile World Congress (the conference formerly known as 3GSM) was great. The Fira de Barcelona convention site is fabulously beautiful, especially when the fountains are playing. The halls are very large, but less overwhelming somehow than those at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The atmosphere is both relaxed and very businesslike. Seeing the newest models of cell phones, smartphones, software, hardware, UMPCs and all was admittedly a geek’s delight, but also a wonderful opportunity to compare, contrast and consider the possibilities, UX and otherwise.

MWC is the perfect place to people watch, especially if your interest is in how people interact with their mobile devices. Notable were the use of many more styluses than is typical in the United States or Israel, and also the body language revealing data use (as opposed to voice calls) above the average.

Then, of course, there’s the sheer exhaustion:

Seen at the Yahoo! booth, Mobile World Congress, Barcelona:

Yahoo! was offering a cable hookup for downloading their newest version of (I think) Yahoo! Go.

If this image doesn’t say something to you about the need for standardizing communications hardware in the mobile industry, nothing will.

I’ll be in Barcelona attending the Mobile World Congress next week. If you’re planning to be there and want to get together, be in touch with me at Sarah <at> reallysarahsyndication <dot> com. You can also find me in the panel of the “It’s the User Experience, Stupid!” session on Tuesday afternoon.

Seen in 2008:

A real old-fashioned business card that doesn’t include the contact’s email address. I don’t know whether this is accidental (forgot to include it?), careless (keeps printing off the same plates?), or intentional (preserving privacy?).

Isn’t it a hassle to write it by hand on the back of the card each time? When does it become more work to protect a way of life (privacy or principle) than to assimilate into the surrounding culture’s expectations? What is the tipping point for giving in?

If you’ve ever heard Orson Welles on the radio, you know his style: the deep voice of authority, the dramatic pacing of volume and tone, the occasional gong punctuating the most climactic statements. Fourteen August is Orson at his most… Wellesian. And then comes the kicker: “With God and Uranium on our side…”

I nearly swallowed my chocolate.

It’s a classic snapshot of the attitude of the late 1940s and early 1950s: the belief that any problem could be conquered with the concerted focus of good scientific brainpower. Of course, many of world’s problems could be resolved — or at least relieved somewhat — by more attention (money, brainpower, willingness, etc.). But some have turned out to be resistant to such treatment, which makes the explicit faith in science come across as pathetically naive.

What is today’s equivalent?

Did you know that a proposal was once made to unite the United Kingdom and France with a single government and shared citizenship? The suggestion originated with Vansittart, de Gaulle and Jean Monnet at the height of the German invasion of France in 1940.

Kind of hard to envision, isn’t it?

“I do not understand why they bothered to exchange Ministries; surely it would have been simpler to exchange names?” — Peter Fleming on a Cabinet reshuffle, as quoted in Harold Nicolson’s Diaries & Letters 1939-45, 5th April, 1940.