Mobile web buzz has been growing with increasing speed since iPhone business applications became norm. We’re using mobile applications to navigate KeyNote/PowerPoint presentations, email co-workers, and consume data. In my opinion, mobile APPLICATIONS (downloaded software) is best for automating processes. Business processes include: communication, transactions, tasks, etc. The point is business applications are successfully sought after because they save time (therefore money).
But the greatest failure by early mobile developers is their apparent disregard for usability–a huge time waster. It’s no wonder many design-and-usability-loving-websites have passed by mobile applications to be featured! The archaic looking designs were difficult to navigate and therefore made disposable by users.
Today there are over 15,000 iphone applications alone, in addition to another 2,000 Blackberry applications. And, finally, users have begun to demand a
respectable interface. Developers have teamed with information architecture and user experience planning rockstars to perform. The result has been applications I consider straight-up-sexy, example: Strokes, a golf game scoring app that allows users to export scores to Facebook or Twitter (by BickBot). Clearly I’m a big fan.
While building an iPhone application isn’t practical for all businesses, ignoring the mobile user is a big mistake. In the past 90 days, mobile web has been as hot of a topic as web development itself (well, darn close!).
Blog posts across the Blogosphere given the following tags: mobile web (red) vs. web development (blue)
Mobile web is great for meeting the needs of users on the go who need quick information, but may not access it on a regular basis. For Biznet (disclosure: my employer), we wanted to make sure clients on-the-go could contact us and find our office while they were out on the road. Simple, not worth an app. The problem was our website, like many websites, didn’t feature our address on the front page. Our phone number was there, but not touch-and-call ready.
The result took this:
and transformed it into this:
The interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The call-to-action is obvious. Win-win!
The point of this post is really just a PSA. Please pay attention to the rapidly growing population of mobile users. Respect their time and eyes by creating interfaces that are practical and easy to use.
