I was so excited when I got my first Palm Treo: I’d be able to browse the Internet from anywhere! That happy moment was soon shattered by the realization that Blazer was a pretty crappy browser. My youthful exuberance was further crushed by the realization that accessing most websites on a 320×240 screen is only slightly better than a root canal. Even now, on my fancy new iPhone 3G, I use the web browser only when absolutely necessary.
Usability expert Jakob Neilsen says Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998. He lists a handful of major problems, from slow download speeds (even with 3G), to tiny little viewports, to bloated designs geared for desktop browsers on big monitors. “Using a mobile makes you a disabled user, and we all know that most sites ignore accessibility,” he observes. How true that is.
Although devices will get better, the big advances must come from websites. Sites (including intranets) must develop specialized designs that optimize the mobile user experience. Today, few sites have mobile versions, and those that do are usually very poorly designed, without knowledge of the special guidelines for mobile usability.
Neilsen offers a number of suggestions for improvements. For example:
Moderately rich sites should build two mobile designs: one for low-end cellphones and another for smartphones and big-screen phones. This strategy is especially good if you’re targeting a broad consumer audience with many feature-phone users. The small-phone experience is so different that it needs a dedicated and deeply scaled-back design, whereas the bigger phones benefit from a design that’s mobile-friendly but not bare-bones. Feature-phone browsing is essentially a linear experience, whereas smartphone and full-screen browsing provide more of a GUI experience — albeit through a limited viewport.
Most interesting, though, Neilsen suggests that the best solution is a dedicated application to deliver your content to your mobile users. As smartphones get cheaper and more prevalent, I think this will be the real solution. From a site as robust as Amazon to something drastically more focused like EverNote, I’m much happier to use a dedicated iPhone app to access these offerings than I am to load up Safari to access the actual web site on my phone.
If you’re a web designer, or you manage web designers, please read Neilsen’s comments. I don’t always agree with everything Neilsen promotes, but in this case I’m with him 100%. The mobile web sucks, and requires a different approach from traditional desktop web design.
um. I was rocking high speed in 98. I think a better comparison is to say mobile web browsing is like having to go back all the way to DOS. Hell to me, a BBS accessed over a 14.4 is better than mobile web browsing today iPhone or not.
Fact is. we don’t need the web on our phones.
We don’t really need the web at all. The world functioned fine before its existence.
We want it, though, and the more places we can get it, the better.
Really? I have a Windows mobile phone and the only web sites that don’t work is this one….hmmm a site that talks A LOT about mobile phones that doesn’t work on cell phone’s, and Engadget, which does kind of work, but if you want to see all the pictures quickly you have to use Skyfire (If skyfire didn’t use so much battery I would use it all the time). My girlfriend has a IPhone and it is a little slow(because of all the content it is downloading) BUT if I had to carry a laptop in line while I was waiting for the person in front of me to decide which movie they were going to get at redbox(I don’t bit torrent) or waiting in line at the grocery store, or the DMV. I LOVE the CNN mobile version and others because they can’t muddy up the page with advertisements (Ahem)———->
I’ve never thought of the mobile web as a replacement for a normal computer, but it sure is nice to have access to it if you forget to look something up before you left work.
Though I support it, one problem with creating seperate content for phones is the same problem we faced back when the internet was young, best described by the phrase “this site best viewed at 800×600 resolution.”
So many different phones right now. So many different resolutions and abilities. The web designer has no standard to build off of, unlike the ‘regular’ internet, where standards have been established by now.
The problem with dedicated apps is that you have to limit your audience. Until there’s a universal smart phone language and compiler, sites will have to decide which apps to support and which to leave behind. Evernote looks cool, but there’s not an app for Blackberry, so I’m stuck with their mobile web version.
I could not agree more with you. If only all online businesses would consider usability testing before launching their mobile app!
I work every day with companies using remote usability testing to test drive their mobile app and make sure the user experience is positive and has the outcome they want.
Thank you for sharing that issue and evangelizing on usability!
Virginie Glaenzer
http://www.userzoom.com
Zooming in on the user experience