Mobile Design and Development

Chapter 4. Designing for Context

In late 2008, I was in Berlin doing a mobile workshop at the Web 2.0 Expo. Having never been to Berlin, I did what I always do in new cities that I visit—I explored. I enjoy just walking aimlessly around a new city with no particular destination or plan. Not only is it a relaxing way to see the sights, but I find amazing things that aren’t on any tour or in any guidebook. There was just one problem with my plan: everything I explored was in German.

Because I know only about five and a half words in German, this made exploration more challenging. Although I really enjoyed seeing Berlin, my first of couple days there were an empty experience. I could certainly see what was right in front of me, but I didn’t have any understanding of what I was looking at. I found myself constantly wondering, “What is this place? Who is this a statue of and why is it here? What significance does it play? What are these people doing? Why is this important?”

At the end of my first day, I found myself in my hotel room visiting Wikipedia so that I could read about what I had seen that day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember all the sites I had seen. The next day was my workshop, so I had only a little time to wander, but I started taking photos of plaques and historical markers with the camera in my phone so I could translate them later that night. I thought it was an inspired idea, but it proved to be too difficult to make out the text and then enter it into an online translator. ...