New Design Strategy of Smartphone User Interface for Creating Brand Value

Background: Major mobile phone brands are producing smartphones with new concepts in order to survive in a fierce competition with each other. However, there are currently several challenges such as a lack of basic principles and imitating competitors' user interface designs. Therefore, the research aimed to develop a new design strategy for smartphone user interface as a brand touchpoint to create brand value through understanding smartphone users’ experience and professionals’ opinions on smartphone user interface. Methods: Main research tools used in the research were questionnaire, focus group interview and expert interview. Questionnaire and focus group interview were conducted to understand mobile phone and smartphone users’ experience, and expert interview to find out how smartphone user interface is designed in the real world. Through the research, some insights were drawn to suggest final outcomes of the research. Results: The results indicated that the role of the user interface has been emerging recently. It is a key factor of a product that can affect not only a customer decision but also a product development process. A new term Human-Brand Interaction (HBI) was also suggested to explain the core idea of the research, and two types of outcomes – HBI design spiral model for smartphones and HBI design process framework – were proposed to answer the key research question. Conclusion: The research would be expected to be valuable and significant for user interface designers, design managers and marketers of brands that produce smartphones.