Co-creation of Experiences on Mobile Information Devices

Sammanfattning: Over a 15-year period, mobile phones have evolved from providing one single feature - the mobile voice call - to multi-featured multi-media communication and entertainment devices. Customer value has been added through successive integration of features previously conveyed by dedicated devices, as clock, timer, camera, media player, radio, etc. This continued integration strategy now poses several challenges to the manufacturers: 1) the management and cost of large product portfolios, 2) the risk of customers being confused by complicated offerings, 3) limitations in signal processing capability, bandwidth and battery life-time and 4) a slow-down of innovation due to catch-up effects with single-feature devices available on the market. There is also severe price pressure in many segments due to new entrants, as well as threatening competition from substitute products like netbooks and single-featured devices, e.g., navigators with added communication functions. In this thesis, we investigate the possibility of strengthening the value proposition of mobile information devices (MIDs) by enabling co-creation of the user experience. This objective is addressed by transferring general theory of co-creation into the mobile arena and defining a cookbook process for systematic synthesis of co-creation applications and services for this market. The suggested process provides a roadmap that covers aspects of market positioning, technical implementation and assessment of the value released through the enabling of co-creation behaviour. The utility and limitations of existing theory and the suggested cookbook process are evaluated by developing a prototype application. It is found that there are numerous opportunities of enabling co-creation on existing MID platforms, using standard peripherals and it is suggested that such efforts shall be concentrated on value propositions that capitalize on key MID characteristics as mobility, immediacy and context awareness. The drivers of co-creation and the strategy for value extraction need to be clearly identified and revisited along the development process. Moreover, as the competitive environment is highly dynamic, reconfigurable software platforms for co-creation and modular development are key components.