Nokia series 60 performs worst in usability testing

Usable Products Company conducted 200 usability tests on 10 mobile telephone handsets in the US from LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, and Sanyo. Service was established through retail channels with Cingular, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Nokia's newest Series 60 handsets, the Cingular Nokia 6620 and T-Mobile 3660, performed worst in Success Rates, Time to Complete, and Ease of Use.

Only 7% of T-Mobile Nokia 3660 users were able to complete tasks that required browsing for, purchasing, downloading, and installing wallpaper to the phone. Only 23% of Cingular Nokia 6620 users were able to browse, purchase, download, and install ring tones to the phone. These figures contrast with a 100% success rate for ring tone browsing, purchase, download, and installation on the Cingular LG L1400 and 89% success for wallpaper browsing, purchase, download, and installation on the T-Mobile Motorola v600 phone.

Usability participants using the Nextel Motorola i710 required, on average, 551 seconds to browse, download, and install games to the phone. Verizon LG VX7000 required only 136 seconds to accomplish the exact same task. The average across 200 users was 250 seconds.