Luke Wroblewski is the Chief Design Architect at Yahoo! Inc. I love his site and his writing/presentations. Luke comes across as a serious thinker (yup, I’ve got a man crush going for sure) and you should absolutely follow him on Twitter and bookmark his site. Luke wrote about “Use Cases for Mobile Apps” back in October and I thought his high-level use cases were right on and useful. I’m sharing them with clients and students. Here they are, quoted directly from the post:
Check In: these continually updating apps encourage quick “check-ins” in between meetings, when in line, or when bored. Because they generally provide really small sized updates like headlines or short messages, the cost of opening one of these apps to check-in is really low. As a result, people tend to use these apps several times a day. Social check-in apps are probably the most popular because their content comes directly from people you know.
Entertainment: if you have more than a minute or two to kill, entertainment apps provide instant boredom relief. They can also employ game mechanics to keeping bringing people back or provide entertainment for extended periods of time through media (music and video) playback.
Communication: text, email, instant message, or call people. While people access these communication channels quite regularly, more involvement is required. Taking a call, responding to email, or having an IM conversation can take several minutes and therefore isn’t ideal for quick check-in behavior.
Local: call up local apps when you are moving through space. Local apps allow you to: find the nearest gas station with low prices, locate a well-rated lunch destination, get an overview of today’s weather, and even navigate physical space using maps and driving directions.
Look Up: answers and content at your fingertips. Look Up apps provide instant access to a wide variety of information through Web browsing, and search. Topic-specific look up apps provide direct access movie ratings or ski reports -no search or browse required.
Utilities: apps that perform specialized tasks. While these apps don’t get very frequent use, they are really handy for meeting specific needs. Think calculators, calendars, convertors, tuners, remotes, recorders, scanners, editors, and more.
Can you add anything here or would you modify any of Luke’s use cases?
