Giving Up On Mobile Data
This is almost as suprising as last week's revelation that mobile data is expensive: people also find it hard to use. A survey has found that about two-thirds of people give up trying to use mobile data after one or two attempts that don't work. They also don't have a lot of hope in their carriers: just 2 percent would seek help from their operator. This follows an earlier survey by the same company that found just 12 percent of people that used mobile data were happy with the experience. Conversely, it's not surprising to find that about half the respondents said they'd use more data services if they got cheaper or became easier to use. Seriously, do people need studies to figure out that people find mobile data overpriced, hard to use and unfulfilling? Device setup has been a problem for users since the days of WAP, and plenty of previous studies have highlighted that usability is a problem. Operators and device manufacturers would do well to stop studying the problem and start trying to solve it. Update: Heh, well, maybe not. A study written about on the same site says just over half of of people with advanced handsets access the internet or check email once a month, and two-thirds of those said the services "were easy to understand and enjoyable to use". Another update: Yet another article on the same site people aren't using MMS, because of -- wait for it -- setup problems and other technical issues.
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