IUP, An international network of indenpendent usability companies, conducted recently a study on the usablity of the mobile services. The group has members in few countries, namely Finland, Italy, Spain, UK, France, China and Germany, and the findings are somewhat interesting stuff to read and to learn.
According to the study, it looks like the mobile Internet usage is finally becoming accepted by the consumers. For example, 12.9% of the population in the UK use mobile Internet. In the US the figure is even higher, 15.6%, but I bet this is explained by the success of mobile mail (=BlackBerry).
There are some main reasons given in the study why someone is not using the mobile Internet services. The top ones are Costs (and not necessarily the high cost, but one believes that it is expensive) and Potential Usability Issues (you think you can't use the services).
The study provides some recommendations to service/content providers. This one I like the most: "One of the biggest issues found in all countries is that websites designed for PC access rarely translate well on handheld devices. Ideally all sites would have a version designed specifically for the mobile platform on which they will be accessed."
( You can download the study in .ppt format)
