Mr Coates spits out some pointers on improving design. He really should write that stuff up some time.

Number 4 is particularly interesting to me: much of the work we've been doing this year has been on prototypes or proof-of-concepts, and the value of having something in the palm of your hand, which you can ask real people (as opposed to industry folk) to interact with, makes it well worth doing.... particularly for mobile, I feel, where it's difficult to visualise exactly how an application will "feel".

I bought a Drifter (delicious chewy chocolatey goodness for anyone who's not encountered it - just add a can of Dr Pepper for instant breakfast) the other day, and noticed one of the old "text in to win" promotions advertised on the side of the packet.

What caught my eye was that the promotion didn't even mention text messaging until you got to the small print - i.e. this stuff has reached the lovely point where it can be taken for granted that it uses texting. That struck me as a good thing, just as it was a good thing when people stopped being all proud that they had a web site (or fax machine, or telegraph) and started thinking about what they could usefully do with the darn thing...