I recently ran a little tiny usability test, with myself as the subject.

The background:

For a year or two I’ve griped about missing calls on my cell phone — it’s in my purse… it’s on my desk in the other room… the convention was so noisy… — and I’m not the only one. Somewhere I read that up to 80% of women complain of missing calls on their mobile phones.

I keep saying that I need a good-looking accessory that will give me a window into the basic phone information on my mobile phone: incoming call alert (with customizable profiles, including ring volume, vibrate and LED), caller ID, and missed calls/message alerts.

The Competition:

The MEX User Experience Design Competition seemed like a great place to submit the design concept for the product, currently going under the name “My Link” (My Link PDF). I figured that at the very least, it would be the right forum to air the user need, especially since I can’t justify diverting Power2B’s attention to a project outside its R&D focus. I was delighted when the My Link Wireless Phone Accessory entry was short-listed for the award in the Professional category; even more delighted when it won.

The Test:

The MEX competition stimulated me to think more about the missed call issue. So I intermarried a Bluetooth headset with an iPod Shuffle, brought them back to the lab to void the warranties, and created a functioning My Link mock-up. The mock-up doesn’t have all the features that matter for the intended use, but it does two critical things: it clips to my clothing, and it gives an audible alert to incoming calls.

The Findings:

At a cafe with my husband, I was struck by a feeling comparable to the first time I left my newborn with a babysitter: a slow buildup of “vigilance anxiety” (subliminal habitual listening for the baby’s cry), followed by an eruption into consciousness (”Omigosh, is the baby OK?”) and a relief (”Oh, right, she’s not with me”). Then a slow return to vigilant state.

The My Link equivalent ran: subconciously listening out for the phone to ring -> sudden consciousness (”Did I just miss a call? I haven’t hear the phone for a while”) -> “Oh, the My Link would have beeped if the phone had rung”. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This led me to realize that there are two categories of problems with missing calls:

• frustration and dilemmas caused by not receiving information/communication in a timely manner

• anxiety and behaviors relating to fear of not receiving information/communication in a timely manner

My personal and unscientific estimation is that the missing calls problem is comprised of 15% of the former, and 85% of the latter.

I also observed the following auxiliary hassles that stem from anxiety about missing calls (no, I don’t exhibit all of these behaviors personally!):

• obsessively checking the phone’s status to see if a call is missed (worst with older clamshell models that don’t have an external display)

• hearing phantom rings

• dumping a purse upside down to find the phone before the call is diverted to voicemail

• family members calling 5 times in a row

• placing the phone on the table / countertop / dashboard in order to monitor it

• family members calling many times in a row “in case you didn’t hear”

• inappropriate ring volume when the profile was changed for outdoor use, and the owner forgot to change back to an indoor profile afterward (also a problem vice-versa)

Thanks to the staff, sponsors, judges and participants in the MEX design competition for the positive interest, and for the opportunity to develop the My Link concept. I would love to see this get taken up and manufactured soon.

My Link PDF