I finally got around to visiting USAA Mobile. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the company provides insurance, banking, and brokerage services to military families. (Thanks, Dad!)

I am thrilled with it. It provides text-only access to:

• View account history.
• Pay bills.
• Transfer funds.
• View transfer activity.
• View account balances.
• Place a trade.
• Check order status.
• Request an auto ID card.

They’ve made text-only access to the things that people need mobile. At the store and the credit card was declined? You can fix it! Need to send a payment to anybody? Pay bills lets you pay anybody already set up. Got in a traffic collision? Get your proof of insurance right away.

What I find so interesting is that bill payment is through a third party and their brokerage services are pretty separate from their insurance and bank services. The organizational work behind this is quite impressive. It worked fine on my old Blackberry and my Sanyo.

The home page is so simple, only 4 items for me and clearly not much for anybody, that they simply append the entire home menu to most screens. I can press 2 to pay bills anywhere in the site.

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© Little Springs Design • See us at Design For Mobile, North America’s first mobile design conference. September 22-24, 2008 — Register by August 1 for early bird discount

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Little Springs Designs the user experience for mobile devices and services. Our practice of user-centered design means the user comes first, not the technology. We learn about the user, design for the user, and talk to the user - but we understand the technology and its limitations and potential.

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