A user attempts to use a product, and fails.
A developer points out how to use the product, and walks away believing there is nothing wrong with the product.
The developer is wrong. If the user can not use the product, the product is broken.
This key concept to usability is not well understood amongst many developer communities, including (perhaps especially) Java ME and mobile web communities. You can see this in some of the comments I get ... I now know the special tricks for using Gmail and Opera Mini. This does not mean that people can use the products.
The problem is worse - much worse - in the mobile community than it is for desktop applications and sites. Problems are introduced the application itself, the environment in which it runs (browser or KVM), perhaps the environment in which THAT runs (Opera and Gmail run in the Java KVM, with problems introduced by the on-device text input mechanisms), the operating system, user expectations set by the device and the operating system, and the actual hardware. And the interactions between each of these.
This is an artifact of organizational silos.
The device manufacturer gets repeat customers, but no incremental income, if the device does not encourage increased use. Take the case in point: the RAZR. I believe the RAZR's user experience is stifling adoption of mobile data services where it is popular, particularly when laptops and Wi-Fi are readily available. Thus most manufacturers focus on pretty looks. Invisible things like the KVM implementation are typically outsourced and ignored, making the Java experience inconsistent with the rest of the device and creating another source of dissonance.
Carriers are taking over the main screen of the device, but their own organizational silos are getting in the way. The folks responsible for downloads know nothing about the KVM or the browser or the device. Subsidy decisions are made based on increasing one division's profits, at the expense of the folks working on data services.
The web site and application providers sit back and say "just get a better phone" or "it will be better when MIDP 3 comes around" or "We'll support Nokia/RAZR". They make the assumption that the user will be able to get to their site/application, even though that may be difficult for the user to figure out.
The user, paying for all this, gets left out in the cold.
And the product is broken, even though it passed all its tests. The user can't use it.
If carriers/operators don't step in to fix this, somebody else will - making the carrier become the bit-pipe they have feared to be all these years.
I totally agree, the Carriers in the USA have failed, it is about time someone else [Apple or Google] step in to bring about new change to these crippled devices and services.
I also completely agree on all points. I don’t think the carriers/operators will fix this, I don’t even think they are the correct entities to do so. Most carriers will become the bit-pipes they fear to be because they simply cannot open up the same way as a web applications do. Even if they wanted to.
I couldn’t agree more, my users always suggest things to me.