Jakob Nielsen reports that researchers from the University of York have performed a study to assess why it’s so annoying when other people have cellphone conversations in public.
Earlier in the week, my fifteen-minute train journey was delayed due to overrunning engineering works. Any regular traveller on the South West Trains suburban lines into London Waterloo station will be used to these delays after weekends or bank holidays. I know it’s so likely that I even plan for it and force myself out of bed and to the station a little earlier if I know there have been engineering works nearby.
As always, some people are caught off guard by this, or perhaps they use it as a cover for the fact that they are running late. It’s amazing how many mobile phone conversations announce that the caller will be late for the office/appointment/meeting due to how late the trains are, when, in fact, there is no more than a ten-minute delay (which, when using London’s transport infrastructure, you should be accounting for anyway).
Earlier this week, however, there was a well-spoken gentleman in my carriage who insisted on calling – what appeared to be – most of his mobile phone contact book to let them know just how late he was. He also said that Justin would have to take the meeting (if Justin ever reads this, the gentleman in question claimed to have confidence that you wouldn’t screw it up, which I thought sounded good for you). All very well, but I didn’t want to know it.
The conversation was irritating, and irritation is always enhanced when a train is late (even if you have planned for it because others haven’t, and civilised behaviour goes out the window). The conversation, however, was loud, but each one was brief and to the point and without any pointless small-talk. The gentleman was efficient in his conversations and factual. He was, however, still irritating.
So I started looking for items on irritation factors caused by mobile telephony, only to find that Jakob Nielsen has some research on ‘Why Mobile Phones are Annoying‘ which implies that, upon testing, conversations face-to-face at the same volume are less irritating than the equivalent mobile conversation. The research suggests,
Designing phones that encourage users to speak softly will reduce their impact on other people. For example, more sensitive microphones and improved quality on incoming audio will make most users less inclined to shout.
[source]
Let’s hope Nokia et al. are listening.
No other posts on this day.
So, this was the scene yesterday morning. It’s proved to be a lot harder work than we imagined and I can hardly walk. Still, they bring the new fence tomorrow (which will look something like the old one really) and it’s starting to make he place look better. We had an enjoyable barbecue with the neighbours for an hour yesterday afternoon which gave us a break and – probably – saved PY and I from arguing too much about the laying of the paving slabs.
It’s a long time since I placed any comment on here about one of the 
