mobile user experience || why mobile ux, why now?

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Why Mobile UX, Why Now? 5 INTRODUCTION A few years ago, I lectured at a college about the future of the mobile web. 1 At the end of the lecture, one of the faculty members approached me with a question. “In the battle between print and the web, who will win?” Taken aback, I answered with: “The war has been over for a while, now we are just counting the bodies …” Now imagine what I would have said had she asked me about the mobile. In the case of the mobile, it was not a battle but a leveling impact with the force of an atomic blast. Its effects were fast and far-reaching. The mobile went from being a Why Mobile UX, Why Now? 1 Adrian Mendoza, “Design in the Age of Mobility,” MassArt, Boston, MA, October 28, 2010. CHAPTER 2

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Page 1: Mobile User Experience || Why Mobile UX, Why Now?

Why Mobile UX, Why Now? 5

INTRODUCTIONA few years ago, I lectured at a college about the future of the mobile web.1 At the

end of the lecture, one of the faculty members approached me with a question. “In the

battle between print and the web, who will win?” Taken aback, I answered with: “The war

has been over for a while, now we are just counting the bodies …” Now imagine what I

would have said had she asked me about the mobile.

In the case of the mobile, it was not a battle but a leveling impact with the force of

an atomic blast. Its effects were fast and far-reaching. The mobile went from being a

Why Mobile UX, Why Now?

1 Adrian Mendoza, “Design in the Age of Mobility,” MassArt, Boston, MA, October 28, 2010.

CHAPTER 2

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6 Mobile User Experience | Patterns to Make Sense of it All

toy one day to a source of revenue the next. By early 201l, smartphones had outsold

desktops.2 By 2013, worldwide smartphone sales were in the billions (1.8 billion to be

exact).3 To put this in perspective, with the “personal desktop revolution” that started

in the mid-1980s, it has taken more than 20 years to get worldwide PC sales over 300

million (2005).4 With this trend, some users, especially in developing countries, will

access the web on a smartphone before they do on a desktop; this is already the case

in some countries. We have entered the mobile age and it is coming straight at us like a

storm, a perfect storm.

THE PERFECT STORM OF MOBILEWhy a perfect storm? Like the figure of speech for the weather, this storm “arose from

a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors.”5 It took three unique factors to

align and develop to create the mobile storm we are in now. We needed the technology,

the users, and user experience all ready at the same time. Had one or another not been

available, the ecosystem would not have evolved. Let me explain.

TECHNOLOGYThe first factor is the technology itself. By the time the first iPhone appeared, small

devices were already commonplace. Users already had a history with iPods, mp3

players, and PDAs; the general public were accustomed to small handheld devices.

Feature phones6 used some form of Internet access and these were common across

the globe. By this time everyone, including his or her brother, grandmother, or child

2 Dana Wollman, “Smartphones Outsell PCs for the First Time Ever,” Huffington Post, February 02, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/smartphones-outsell-pcs-f_n_820454.html.

3 Gartner.com, April 4, 2013, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2408515.4 eTForecasts, “Worldwide PC Market.” http://www.etforecasts.com/products/

ES_pcww1203.htm.5 Oxford English Dictionary.6 Feature Phone—Term for mobile phone with basic Internet connection. It mainly opens WAP

enabled web pages.

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Why Mobile UX, Why Now? 7

had a Motorola Razor phone in their pocket. It was the inclusion of touch technology

and readily available 2G bandwidth that accelerated the use of the smartphone. The

synthesis of a small handheld device with a phone, mp3 player, and camera was the

next logical step in the technology trend.

USERSThe second factor is the users themselves. Like the technology, they were already

familiar with keeping a small handheld device in their pockets. They were familiar with

of using and carrying an mp3 player, phone, and/or camera (sometimes carrying all

three). Combining these three devices was the logical next step. The groundwork

for the usage patterns already existed, and adding Internet usage was a natural

expansion. By the time the first smartphones were launched in 2007, users were

already familiar with using the desktop web. There was no need to teach them about

buying online, accessing their email, looking for a map location, and other web-

based patterns. The learning gap and usage patterns of getting users online had

already been bridged. Some users had been using the web since primary school

at this point, users were not only well versed, they had grown up with the Internet.

The only thing left was to teach them how to optimize these patterns for mobiles; a

smaller feat compared to teaching them how to use the web on a desktop computer

for the first time.

USER EXPERIENCEThe third factor of the perfect storm is user experience as a discipline. By 2007,

user experience design was already considered a formal discipline in the web design

industry. It had become a crucial piece of any web-based design or build. It has

evolved from the art form in its infancy (information design) to the science of user

centric experience design. Now a user experience designer sits between an art director

and the web developer; at times they even manage the project. The science of user

experience design is also the guiding principle of increasing web sales, increasing user

conversions, optimizing design, and retaining users. Web design has been refined from

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8 Mobile User Experience | Patterns to Make Sense of it All

a loosely trained discipline (you usually picked it up on the job) to the formal education

of user experience designer (college degree and certificates). By the time Apple

released the human interface guidelines for their iPhone, it was not a surprise, but rather

an expectation and common practice.

THE PROBLEMLike learning how to use the web on the desktop for the first time, mobile brought

its own challenges. Compared to the desktop, we have introduced new variables to

creating a user experience on a mobile device. Gone are the consistent factors of

the desktop experience, the large size of bandwidth, and even the user’s focus and

attention to the task. With mobile, you have to take into account the carrier, the type of

device you are on, the operating system, and the screen size; these factors add up to

what I call the “Mobile Equation.”

Think of this as the recipe for designing mobile experiences. Mix the inconsistency

of the carrier and your signal strength depending on your location. Stir in the different

operating systems (Android, iOS, Windows, etc.) and the different versions of each OS.

Whisk in the different form factors and sizes of each mobile device you will be using.

Finally, add in the different screen sizes and types into the equation (LCD, Super AMOLD

displays) and the unpredictable oven temperature of the users’ usage patterns. This

entire equation gives you an insight into the unique challenges of creating a mobile

experience. Why would anyone want to inherit this mess? Why would anyone want

to work on mobiles compared to the desktop? These are questions that can only be

answered by the opportunity that the mobile provides us.

Your mobile

userexperience

Carrier Device Operatingsystem

Screen size

The Mobile Equation.

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Why Mobile UX, Why Now? 9

THE OPPORTUNITYRegardless of its rapid growth, innovative technology, or even global reach, mobile

gives us an opportunity that we have never had with the design of desktop web

experiences. The grand vision of Web 2.07 was to connect one-on-one with a user; it was

to provide them with personalized content and a user experience just for them through

the use of dynamic web experiences. In reality, that dream never came to fruition; the

web experience became too busy and overcomplicated the longer we went on. The

mobile enables that dream to come true. It puts one Internet-enabled device in the hand

of a single user. It gives them the power to access the web at anytime and at any place

and the option to broadcast or connect directly one-on-one. It is this usage pattern that

presents us the opportunity to design a mobile user experience that can be consumed

on a one-on-one basis. Users will carry our mobile experiences with them anywhere

and open them anytime. It is this same mobile experience that they can engage with

and keep in their pocket; it is both their personal and public persona. The mobile gives

a single user a camera, an open web connection, a way of posting, tweeting, and

messaging to the outside world. It is their voice; you can help design a mobile user

experience to enhance it. This is the mobile opportunity.

7 Web 2.0—Term coined in early 2000s to describe dynamic websites with user generated or social media content.