Mobile Usability Essentials

Many of the essentials of the usability process apply in designing for mobile and smartphones.

These include:

Prototyping using paper and other models.

Testing with users. Ask yourself: what will make users loyal ? How powerful is the branding? What are the heuristics for the type of product you are building - simple and practical? cool and catchy? Other? How can you make your interface simpler? Does it work intuitively and easily?

Usability of the mobile web: where it is and where it needs to be.

Over the summer of 2009, usability expert Jakob Nielsen, tested the usability of mobile devices across a variety of channels, including observations about a variety of mobile devices (from cell phones to touch screen smartphones) and a plethora of actual interactions with websites, including sites designed for mobile and some not.

Problems with mobility and usability are mostly patform-based.

Nielsen's conclusions are telling. One of the most damning things he said in the report: "Observing user suffering during our sessions reminded us of the very first usability studies we did with traditional websites in 1994. It was that bad."

To be fair, many of the problems with mobile usability are built into mobile devices by their very nature: the size of the screen, the size of the keyboard and problems with infrastructure, specifically download speeds. These are aspects that phone designers and providers are going to have to overcome amd designers are going to have to work around. (Air typing and holographic imagery might be the best answers but both seem a long way off at this point.)

No excuse to forego a mobile design

Still, the fourth most prominent problem with usability for mobile is misdesigned websites. Companies that had the foresight to build sites optimized for mobile fared better than those who designed only with desktop interactions in mind.

If mobile use is important to your Internet strategy, it's smart to build a dedicated mobile site. You can find out how many mobile users are using your site using most analytics programs, including Google Analytics. Using current understanding, designing for mobile results in a 20% increase in effectiveness: this alone is reason enough to create mobile-specific designs for your website/interaction (including apps, employee intranets, etc.)

You can auto-detect users' devices then auto-forward these mobile users to your mobile site (or subdomain, subsite, etc.) You should also offer clear links back and forth between your full site and mobile site.

Never overwhelm users with options and functions. Instead, focus on the site features users are most likely to use.

Want to learn more about our understanding of mobile and usability? Contact us and find out about our expertise in mobile usability and design.