On the Floor

It's pretty obvious: a big part of the future of the web is mobile - smartphones, iPads, other mobile devices. We're increasingly reading websites on smaller screens with new and different input methods. When I had a dumbphone, I thought, "Psh, web on my phone? That's dumb." Now that I have a smartphone, I use mobile browsing everywhere. Why? It delivers information when and where I want it.

Some sites and services have embraced this and produced really slick mobile versions. Gmail is a great example of this. Check this out - that's exactly the same mailbox - one's optimized for my giant desktop monitor and the other's designed specifically for the touch input and limited size of an iPhone screen.

On the other hand, a lot of other sites that are great on the desktop have a crummy (or non-existent!) user experience on mobile devices. Let's say I wanted to check my bank balance.

Desktop version: no problem. Mobile version - Whoa, what? I can't read that. I'm going to have to pinch and zoom like a madman to use this site.

What can we take away from this? There's a handful of lessons to learn here.

Think about what your users might want to do online. In the case of Gmail, this is obvious: read e-mail. Google's done a good job of optimizing their mobile interface to do just that, and not much more. I don't expect a mobile site to have all the bells and whistles - I'm not going to apply for a mortgage on my phone, for instance - but supporting those base functions should be job #1.

Think about the interaction model. Humans tend to have giant fat fingers, compared to the 1-pixel hit area of a mouse pointer. Clickable items need to be big and noticeable. That's great for iPhones, but what about Blackberries? And that's great for Blackberries, but what about Palm devices, etc.? Make sure you've covering all your use cases.

Think about the device itself, and its connectivity. Having a bare-bones mobile site is better than getting the full desktop experience on your mobile device. I don't want to load all those graphics! Data is expensive, man! Most of the mobile sites I came across in putting together this post were smart about this: text interface, great use of CSS, and images only where necessary.

I've been pleasantly surprised to find a super mobile version of a site way more often than I've had to deal with a compressed desktop version. Overall, I think there's increasing awareness of how to make a great mobile site, and why it's valuable. By thinking about these kinds of rules of thumb and best practices, we're helping to keep that awareness growing.

The mobile browsing trend is still accelerating. Let's make sure we're ready to build great experiences.