"It’s about what to design and when to design, because human behaviour changes very slowly; technology changes very quickly."

This quote is from a BBC article about Jan Chipchase who is a researcher at Nokia Design.  He has a pretty cool job – travels the world and watches how people use their phones to understand where product design needs to go.  As part of the process, he brings designers along so they can see first hand and uses a qualitative market research approach called convergent validity.

Mr Chipchase’s focus is on the uses to which people put their phones; where they keep them, how they answer them, and a million other details about our relationships with these devices that have helped shape our world.

Here’s an eye-catching statistic from the story:

By 2009 more than four billion people in the world – out of a population of 6.3 billion – are expected to have a mobile phone connection in their lives.

That’s 64% of the global population! 

Another data point that confirms mobile devices will become ubiquitous and be the way most of the world’s population connects for the first time.