Designing a better cell phone user interface

Given that the cell phones on the market seem to be so often badly designed - at least in terms of usability - it seems that the industry could use some sort of design reference. Cell phones have been on the mass-market for rather a while. Surely by now someone would have taken a stab at writing up some sort of guidelines, or offered some sort of reference design?

Went searching and - oddly enough - did not come up with much.

• Tiresias - Guidelines (Mobile Phones)


• MIDP GUI Programming: Programming the Phone Interface


• Trace and phones


• Excerpt from “Everyone Interfaces”


• Trace Center Cell Phone Reference Design

Seems that most of the guidelines are focused on folks with disabilities. To be brutally honest, free-market companies care very little about the disabled as they represent only a very small portion of the market. On the other hand, there does not seem to be focus on usability for mainstream consumers. Maybe I did not look in the right places. On the other hand, since the end result - the devices on the market - is so poor, we have to assume that effectively no one else is able to find relevant information.

From personal experience I can take a rough first cut at guidelines: ... (Via Preston L. Bannister)