Design Guidelines for Better 3G User Interfaces

This paper presents the development and content of two guideline documents developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Specialist Task Forces (STF) 231 and 322 of the Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF): 1. The initial approach taken in the ETSI Guide (EG) 202 132: Generic User Interface Elements for Mobile Terminals and Services [1], with a focus on 2G technologies; and 2. Considerations and issues addressed in the 3G centric expansion (under development until October 2008), ETSI Guide (EG) 202 974: Generic User Interface Elements for 3G/UMTS Mobile Devices, Services and Applications [2]. The two sets of guidelines, when applied in product development and to implementations, are expected to considerably improve the general usability, consistency and accessibility of mobile solutions, including terminal-, serviceand application-related aspects of the mobile user experience.