The Mobile Frontier

Mobile user experience is a new frontier. Untethered from a keyboard and mouse, this rich design space is lush with opportunity to invent new and more human ways for people to interact with information. Invention requires casting off many anchors and conventions inherited from the last 50 years of computer science and traditional design and jumping head first into a new and unfamiliar design space.

Rachel Hinman is a researcher, designer and a recognized thought leader in the mobile user experience field. Her passion for cultural study, art, and design coupled with the belief that people can use technology to improve the human condition have been the driving forces in her career for over a decade.

Currently, Rachel is a Senior Research Scientist at the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto, California. There she focuses on the research and design of emergent and experimental mobile interfaces and mobile experiences for emerging markets. Prior to joining Nokia, Rachel was an experience design director at Adaptive Path, and a mobile researcher and strategist for Yahoo's mobile group. Rachel's innate sensitivity to people and culture have proven powerful skills in the field, enabling her to successfully lead research studies on mobile phone usage in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Rachel writes and speaks frequently on the topic of mobile research and design. She is the creative force behind the 90 Mobiles in 90 Days Project and her perspectives on mobile user experience have been featured in Interactions Magazine, BusinessWeek and Wired.