Mobile usability and design: where to begin

In beginning to design for mobile interactions, designers need to start by figuring out and focusing on what mobile does best over other interactions.

As with previous revolutions, the best products will focus on user needs over clever designer and developer gimmickry. We already see that with some of the most popular iPhone apps like Instapaper.

We can all be sure smartphone technology is going to change immensely in the next few years, too. Within some projected limitations, it's going to be more robust and faster. While it seems that we are close to maxing out on maximizing the usefulness of the desktop PC, mobile presents a new field for revolutions in speed, bandwidth and other abilities.

Some tips for creating excellent mobile experiences for users:

Identify your assumptions and deal with them: your assumptions about design and your assumptions about mobile and any limitations you think it may have.

Know what users' needs are first then figure out how to meet those needs or solve their problems (including ones they do not even know they have). When creating an interaction write out all the user questions that might be asked about that experience or that interaction (or set of interactions). Does your website answer a question the user will have? How important is that question to the user? Read more about the fundamentals of usability applied to the design of mobile interactions.

A metaphor for mobile design is the card. Consider this, web designers: the fundamental metaphor for website design was the "page" while a fundamental metaphor for mobile design is a "card." Read more about the card metaphor.

Account for a variety of contexts. More than any other interaction, mobile interactions can take place in an infinite variety of contexts: on busy streets, in bathrooms, while driving, while playing, while working. As we all recognize, a mobile experience can take place anywhere, with people doing anything. If you are sure that your mobile interactions take place within a finite set of contexts, you can design with that in mind. But you should be sure about that. Give some test subjects a phone using your app and see where they use it; in other words, try out some good old fashioned usability testing.

If you want to move onto what's next, read some very basic theory of design for the mobile web or find out about our services in mobile usability consulting.