A Bit of History

Field Study in 2000

WAP Doesn’t Work

Déjà Vu: 1994 All Over Again

Mobile Killer App: Killing Time

This appendix contains a short description of our first mobile usability study, which we ran way back in 2000. At the time, we tested people using WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) phones to access the online services of the day.

WAP was an early way of accessing the Internet through mobile phones. However, after we saw the usability findings, we started saying that the acronym WAP really stands for Wrong Approach to Portability.

We tell you about this early research for three reasons:

• It’s always satisfying to gloat, so it’s good to see how far the use of mobile devices has come since these first days of mobile Internet use. ...

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