Nice one from @nielsenwire. People use tablets in front of the TV and E-readers in bed. Mobile phones are the social devices one use together with friends, but also the time killer devices. I would also like to meet the people using e-readers while shopping…..
In the U.S., Tablets are TV Buddies while eReaders Make Great Bedfellows | Nielsen Wire.
Progressive enhancement, Responsive web design and Adaptive layout are all new “buzz words” when it comes to web design and more specifically design of mobile web sites. Drizzle some HTML5 and CSS3 over it, and you have your self a perfect meal of hype (btw: sometimes this dish of hype is called just “HTML5″).
Well, hype is a strong word, but there are certainly some misunderstandings about what responsive web design (RWD), HTML5 and CSS3 can do for mobile. It is neither the Holy Grail nor the silver bullet. This discussion is reaching philosophical levels all over the web currently, so I’ll try to be short and specific:
First, what is the difference between Progressive enhancement, Responsive web design and Adaptive layout?
Well, when it comes down to it, probably not that much. The general idea is that content is laid out differently depending on the screen size of the device accessing the web page, and that the layout and presentation is progressively enhanced (by using media queries and JavaScript) as the screen increases in size.
At least, this is how many out there implement it. To me, none of these terms really covers all aspects of what they claim to solve. Coming from the “mobile world” I have discussed the “One Web” philosophy before, and, to me, this current discussion on RWD is just the same, but this time focused on implementation. That means we are one step closer to something.
I say “one step” because the current discussion and early implementations forget something very important. I will call that context (I will discuss this below). The current value chain in many fancy HTML5 RWD projects look like this:
The editor write stuff for the desktop web. The CMS thinks the content is going to the desktop web. The web server don’t know anything about the device or context of the reader. The consuming device is left with all the hard work of being responsive, adapting the layout and enhance progressively.
That’s not fair, right or smart. If you love your end users and value user experience this is not the solution.
It is not only the design of the web site and the layout of content that needs to be adapted of enhanced; the idea of being responsive, adaptive and enhancing, must be implemented in the whole value chain.
The Editor and CMS
Luke Wroblewski is talking about this in his “Mobile First” presentations, even if he is not calling it RWD or anything else, he addresses the process of designing and publishing content to a device or context you know less about at the time of producing the content. The editors out there need to start thinking like this. The CMS vendors must build functionality to support this.
The Web Server
In modern publishing of digital content there are many “unknowns”:
This type of contextual information is important. In todays RWD approaches this problem is not addressed, by leaving all the difficult decisions to the client compromising the usability of the site.
You might understand where I am going with this. I am all in favor of RWD and stuff, but the current discussion is missing out on what mobile really is. Even if we can make the site look decent on smaller screens using media queries and JavaScript magic, there is still need for server side processing. Current attempts on RWD will send the same markup, css, js and content to all client. This means that a mobile device will download tons of markup, css, javascript and content that will not have a function on the mobile device. For example, showing fewer news items on the front page is solved by “display: none;” in the css, image resizing is solved by “width: 100%” (put to the extreme).
So, the web server needs to be responsive too. The web server should take care of things like image scaling, some media query processing, markup processing etc. This way the client will get only what is needed to present the content. Data traffic is minimized and the client doesn’t have to use so much power to just render the page. Time and money saved for the end users, which must be a great recipe for happy customers!
Concluding
It is not my intent to offend any editors, web designers or RWD fans! My point here is that the current “trend” in the market right now, to lean on the silver bullet HTML5, and the smartest innovation since the printing press, RWD, will not solve the technical issues nor the content/design issues. More is needed. All stakeholders in the value chain needs to be involved to create a true “one web”, or usable content across all contexts.
RWD is an important step towards what we want to achieve: A great user experience when surfing the web on all devices. Is the mobile web becoming desktop-web-like as some were advocating a few years back? No, I think the web is becoming mobile aware.
The next issue
The “SEO’ers” among you have probably seen the issue already. “User-Agent cloaking“. This is where you present different content, or a different page, depending on the user agent. An old trick from SEO. Google is not that fond of that… However, when it comes to mobile, Google is OK with this. However, I don’t feel 100% comfy on this as Google mobile search appears as a random mess to me…
Googles EMEA Head of Mobile, Ian Carrington, visited Oslo recently. Unfortunately, I didn’t know so I could not be there when he boldly pointed out that if you company did not have a mobile friendly web presence, you will loose market share. He also predicts that mobile commerce and advertising will grow significantly by 2015.
Here is a translated article on the topic from Kampanje.com.
However, there are a few things that puzzles me here… I totally agree that mobile web is the way to go and that the business as a whole will grow. Maybe by the numbers Carrington says, but I doubt it will have the desired effect for the ones who are spending the money. The reason is search. Mobile search sucks! Even if my estimate suggests that 13500000000 mobile searches are performed pr month on Google the search quality is poor. Generally, search today is a tool for desktop devices with a static context. Even if you get different search results with a mobile, Google need to work on that algorithm, because the relevance is too poor compared to experience one would get on a desktop. Even if 1 in 3 mobile searches has a local intent, and you want to find the closest shoe store, this is not the case for 2 out of 3. Local search is easy, the issue is the other 66%. This article from search engine land, points out a few other issues.
At this stage, it doesn’t look like any search engine out there is built for mobile. Or is it the web sites indexed by Google that need to change? (SEOs have a hell of a job optimizing sites for mobile search!)
So, for mobile commerce and advertising to explode, like everyone says it will, mobile search has to improve, SEOs need to understand and work with mobile and the last missing link: The backend systems need to support mobile as a sales and customer interaction channel (Ebay is probably moving in the right direction, even if they are missing some parts…(try searching for “ebay car” on your phone, and you see what I mean)). I guess this issue is related to the well debated term “One Web“.
As of April 2011, I cant see this happening any time soon. I mean, the three things I mentioned above is what is required to get a real explosion. The numbers Ian Carrington is telling us is really just natural growth when you think about the big numbers we are playing with in the mobile business.
Earlier this year, I wrote a short post comparing the number of downloads in the Apple Appstore to number of searches on the mobile web.
Now, new reports suggests that the number might be 15% (paid search)
If Google then has in the area of 90 bill searches per month, and 15% of these are from mobile, we get 13 500 000 000 (thats 13,5 bill) mobile searches per month performed on Google sites…
If the other search properties (bing, yahoo,baidu etc.) has a similar number of mobile searches, the total number of mobile searches performed per month globally is 21 000 000 000 (if we assume global search per month is ≈ 140bill)
(Would love to find an accurate number on this. Comparing different data sources does not give a true picture, I know.)
On the other hand… Does this really matter since Google search quality on mobile is so poor? Does mobile users search more because they cant find what they are looking for?
A great presentation for modern mobile web development!
I have always said that usability is not the same as a nice looking design. Usability is even different form user experience. Of course, it’s an all day discussion just to agree on the terms… So let me try to explain my views.
The success of a mobile website or mobile application totally relies on its usability. Usability is an umbrella term, considering information architecture, affordance, interaction design and, to some extent, design. A mobile web site can have a crappy design, but still be very usable. (On the web, my fav example is Norways largest online newspaper vg.no (The site is still compelling, but the design is not world class, top modern) ) So, thats my definition. But now to my point.
Usability patterns applied on a desktop web site cannot be ported to mobile and be expected to work well! This is where the confusion starts. Web designers tend to know some things and tricks about usability on desktop web. But in most cases this knowledge is useless on mobile.
Why? Because usability in mobile is more about HCI than web design. On the web the interaction model is simple and uniform across platforms; the mouse and keyboard. General design approaches applies to a greater extent on desktop due to this interaction model and the fact that the screen is bigger. It makes sense to present a “flyer design” or “brochure look” on a desktop website. And it might even be very usable, user friendly, have a cool design and provide good user experience.
On mobile on the other hand, the interaction model is very different and more fragmented. The same goes for screen size. This is my main argument for approaching design of mobile sites or apps from a HCI perspective and not a design perspective.
The counter argument I meet is “But look at Apple iPhone. They have the coolest design ever”. Yes, true. But they have also revolutionized the way the user interacts with both mobile web sites and apps by introducing new controls, navigational patterns and, most importantly, removing an abstraction level by the introduction of the touch screen. With the touch screen you are actually interacting with the site/application it self, compared to desktop web where you have the mouse and keyboard and on other mobile devices where you have joysticks, arrow keys, stylus etc.
The HCI approach to mobile design considers this difference. So, what I am saying here is that if you want a kick ass mobile web site or app, hire a HCI expert, not a designer.
….or if you stumble upon HCI expert with design expertise, hire him/her today and double their salary!
Came across a very insightful article from dinside.no. Its in norwegian, but you can read in translated by google here. Some say it might be stating the obvious; that smart phones are more important for the media industry than tablets. I say obvious, because it is really a question about counting and simple mathematics even I can understand:
And if you take a ride on the bus, train, tram or subway, you will surely see that there fiddling with at least ten smartphones per newspaper, 30 smartphones per laptop, and at least 100 smartphones at this level. Does not the industry for immediate income potential is?
The advice is:
Add heads together and create “total packages” that are interesting to pay for and spend time on. Full articles online and offline, full archive-access with search that work, benefits in the form of discounts and invitations, as well as music, games and contests are good starting points. Make clear distinctions between the full package and free / web solutions.
Agree, and it’s not about the tablets, it is about mobile access to content.
EDIT: Was looking for this Gartner statement when writing the above. Could not find it intil now. On top of Americans wish list; yes, a smart phone.
Back from a great week in Barcelona at world mobile congress. And now finally able to read email, surf, tweet and communicate with the rest of the world again.
The irony is of course that at the worlds biggest trade show about connectivity, no one was connected. Flaky wifi and flaky roaming at best. Haha…
PPK has, as usual, written an excellent piece on, what seems like is a never ending story; Apps vs. web. My personal opinion, as I always have had, is that the web in its nature, and web technology with its cross platform abilities, is the most future proof and scalable option.
Just think of it: Apple is in these days celebrating 10bill downloads . Sounds like a big number, but 140 bill web searches are performed pr month globally (let’s assume that the number has increased a bit since December 2009). If 4-6% of these are performed by mobile devices, and assuming Google has close to 100% of all mobile web searches; Google serves in the area of 6-8 billion mobile searches! Per month! Moreover, several reports are telling us about explosive growth in mobile web search. Then 10 bill app downloads since the launch becomes a small number.
Given this, what does not make sense to me is that people choose to spend (I am saying spend, not invest) money on apps in an app store, and not invest in their web strategy in general by making sure mobile searchers are taken well care of. SEO with a mobile twist, make sure deep linking works, optimized presentation for handheld devices etc. etc. This is an investment because cost of ownership is way less than maintaining a number of apps and app store relationships.
In my mind, the conclusion is easy: The web is the biggest and most scalable app store.
Regarding Apple’s monopoly @ppk states:
The iOS architecture enforces a distribution monopoly for Apple’s app store. This monopoly is used for controlling money, content, advertising, and discoverability, with the predictable consequence that Apple makes a succulent amount of money
I would like to add that one of the more critical issues with this particular app store is that Apple owns the relationship to the customer, refusing to share it with those who created the relationship. This story is a good example and well worth noting in this discussion (and when you are done with that, read about the success of the iPad newsstand Zinio ).
PPK goes as far as calling the app stores a “solution without a problem“. I would not go that far. As I discussed in a blogpost at Mobiletech, the good thing with app stores (meaning Apple) is that they come with an out of the box, working business model (didn’t say any other than Apple will make money, but it’s still a possible revenue option).
I feel that I could have gone on forever listing arguments on why a mobile strategy based on apps and app store business models is not sustainable.
