Mobile Experience

Evan Gerber415.351.8404

Overview• Since 2001, Evan Gerber has practiced in mobile UI design.

• He is fascinated by the confluence of portability and power of mobile computing, as well as it’s impact on user behavior, and sees it as the new frontier of digital.

• Evan definitely also likes to treat himself to new gadgets

2001 2007 2011

Overview• Evan’s industry recognized work includes major clients

– Multinational financial brands – Handset manufacturers– Telecommunications providers

• One area of particular interest is how to take findings from the consumer space, and apply them to financials without copying what has already been done.

Overview• Currently he is focused on the concept of convergence;

solving the problem of preparing digital teams to evolve into a model where data is shared seamlessly across platforms, and locations. Getting the right content, to the right user, at the right time throughout the customer lifecycle lowers costs, raises revenues, and deepens relationships.

Case Studies

TD Mobile Roadmap

Challenge: Devise a mobile growth strategy for a major consumer bank, based on the user need, business goal, and technical constraints.

Tasks: Ethnographic research to understand user behaviors. Stakeholder interviews to explore strategic business goals. Technical review to analyze CM structure and data storage. I lead a team of two on this project.

Learnings: A successful mobile strategy is as dependent on the carrier ecosystem as the existing technical infrastructure. User behavior is driven by phone capabilities and data charges as much as vendor offerings.

Successes: A satisfied client and on-time delivery of a long term growth strategy for multiple customer types. Recommendations ranged from WAP-based feature phones to smart phone interaction design.

Sprite Yard

Challenge: Help the world’s 4th largest soft drink create the world’s first social network based on a mobile platform.

Tasks: Support interface design and integration with a sophisticated multi-tier tech platform while remaining true to a mature and multifaceted brand. User test mobile device and refine user interface to improve product design. I lead a team of two researchers, and handled senior client relationships with a major brand.

Learnings: Users are very sensitive to additional charges, and will assiduously avoid them. Adoption of mobile applications requires an ecosystem of users, tools, and valuable features.

Successes: Global release of a mobile social network, with large scale media attention including the economist. The network is still used today around the world.

Pantech

Challenge: Help a market leading handset manufacturer think of the next generation of cellphone devices to sell into the US.

Tasks: Create and deploy user tests, qualitative surveys, and ethnographic research to uncover insights on how users incorporate phones into their lives, what they say they want, and what they actually need in their mobile devices. I lead a team of three researchers on this project.

Learnings: Users see their phones as a ‘digital jackknife’ - a device that ties together all facets of their lifestyles and ideally is a bridge between the analog and digital worlds. As these devices mature they become less of a phone and more of a mini-computer.

Successes: Our recommendations influenced the design of the mobile handsets which were presented to AT&T and Verizon. The insights around ‘superme’ and ‘digital jackknife’ were proved true by user behavior as the market adopted the iphone and android platforms.

Adidas Climacool

Challenge: Help create a mobile website for quick deployment to support a cross channel marketing campaign around the release of Adidas’ latest product.

Tasks: Work with creatives and tech teams to design an interface that was intuitive, responsive, and worked across platforms and channels. Created high context wireframes for the offshore development team to minimize the likelihood of complications during build phase. I built these wireframes myself.

Learnings: Releasing a website instead of a mobile application can speed up launch times, but reduces the sophistication of the application.

Successes: This site was awarded with the FWA Site of the Day, a considerable achievement in the advertising space.

Ubisoft uPlay

Challenge: Help a leading video game publisher move into the mobile space while confronting a highly competitive and managing the constant change of the space.

Tasks: Analyze current business goals and anticipated strategy to create a platform which is flexible, scalable, and modular. This architecture is designed to leverage the strengths of the Tridion CMS which I had just designed for them in a prior engagement.

Learnings: Mobile Application interaction design does not need to be as linear and constrained as web app design, however the smaller interface and (at the time) lack of clear heuristic cues for certain actions create challenges which need to be surmounted.

Successes: The work was well received by the client, and influenced their thinking as they began to strategize on how to engage with the mobile audience.

Lotus Notes Mobile Application Development

Challenge: Support the first release of the Lotus Notes platform to the PalmVII OS.

Tasks: Business Analysis, User interface design, application development and testing within the Lotus Notes framework. I worked on a team of 15 developers during the course of this project.

Learnings: Mobile applications on a small green screen with limited access to the internet provided limited value – the strength of the mobile platform was in it’s ease of application development.

Successes: Development and release of one of the very first mobile application environments and platforms while working for IBM in 2001.

Thought Leadership

Sample Speaking EngagementsMaking More Money with Mobile Marketing MetricseMetrics Marketing Summit, San Francisco, CAEvan Gerber and Alan Osetek, May 2008

The Digital Jackknife: The Wild West of MobileAJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo, Oct. 20-22, in San Jose, CAEvan Gerber

Sample Speaking EngagementsNet Neutrality and Google; Can a Faustian bargain “do no evil”http://na.isobar.com/2010/net-neutrality-and-google-can-a-faustian-bargain-do-no-evil/Evan Gerber, 13 August 2010

Are you failing to mobilize your metrics?http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20421.aspBy Evan Gerber on September 12, 2008

Mobile : It’s not just for teens anymorehttp://www.imediaconnection.com/content/17993.aspBy Evan Gerber on January 14, 2008

Don't make a bad call with mobilehttp://www.imediaconnection.com/content/17433.asp Evan Gerber on November 27, 2007

Capture teens in a mobile web http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/16555.aspEvan Gerber on September 10, 2007

5 steps to take your website mobileEvan Gerber on August 13, 2007http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/16153.asp

Master the mobile format in 5 stepshttp://www.imediaconnection.com/content/15936.aspEvan Gerber on August 09, 2007