A phone for mother

My mum uses a Nokia 3300. She’s had it for about 4 years. It’s solid, reliable and it’s on Pay-as-you-go. Every year we add £100 to it and that generally does her fine. If she’s off out shopping, she rarely takes it with her.

However, something interesting happened this morning. She presented it to me and said ‘is there nothing a bit nicer I could get?’

I was taken back for a moment then summoned my brother with his array of gadgetry. Within seconds she was browsing through a veritable mobile-phone-shop of devices – Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Motorolas, Samsungs.

I thought that maybe we should keep her on a Nokia. You know, familiar interface etc. But it turns out that the interface on the new Nokias isn’t quite as familiar as the Nokia of old.

Mum explained that she’d been out with friends recently and had admired their silvery new flippy phones. Her 3300 didn’t really compare.

I thought I’d weigh in with a fashion perspective: “You can’t be taking a 4 year old 3300 out of your brand new Gucci handbag.”

This appeared to strike a significant cord! Brilliant!

She took a real shine to Fraser’s Motorola v3x — and was particularly enamoured by the camera. However the keyboard, although big, is a little bit clunky and complicated for someone not used to anything more tactile or involved than a TV remote control.

Designers could learn a substantial amount from watching my mum.

The question here is: Should mum have to learn all the fiddly stupid eratic actions associated with operating a modern handset? (It’s surprising how much is second nature to us geeks). Or should the handset bend around the user?

Yes, I reckon.

It should be big, huge and simple with five(ish) major options and a huge button controlling them all:

ADDRESS BOOK
CALL SOMEONE
TEXT SOMEONE
TAKE A PICTURE
SWITCH OFF

The Vodafone ‘Simple’ phone is one I’ve always looked at for mum. Check out the Simple interface.

I discounted the ‘Simply’ range because I thought they didn’t have a camera. That’s a deal breaker: Mum wants to be able to take pictures of sofas (etc) so she can then show dad.

However it appears that some phones in the range do come with cameras. More investigation required.

UPDATE: Ok, spoke too soon. They don’t have any with cameras. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.