Designing for mobile vs. Designing for all previous media (including the web on desktop)

Some fundamental aspects of mobile interactions make them essentially diffferent from their design from that of all previous media, including the web as seen on a desktop computer.

Mobile web design must design for attention interruption or limited attention.

Designers for the mobile web must reduce cognitive bandwidth of interactions. People are not sitting and reading and thinking. They are quite often in the middle of blooming, buzzing reality.

Consider the wildest environments and how your app or interaction will be useful to users in those environments. Too many mobile interactions we've seen are already focused on clever solutions over actual user needs. Ideally, users want mobile interactions that know when they need help and are ready to offer them the solution immediately. They definitely do not want to be assailed by advertising for "deals" or "great new products." Mobile is likely to reduce activities to a small collection of options at any time, with no room for filler or extraneous material once you are at the decision making point.

Forget task completion. As Rachel Hinman writes, "think possibilities not tasks." Hinman advises that mobile websites need to pivot people through information quickly and expose possibilities.

This is another revolutionary aspect of mobile that makes it fundamentally different from previous media. It's not about moving from point A to Z then leaving. It's about opening up a world of possibilities at each new step. Since people out and about are moving around, they are not focused on closing tasks. They are looking for the next place to go, the next thing to do. They close their own tasks when (if ever) they put away their smartphone.

When you move into a new location it opens up new possibilities. Design for mobile has the ability to tap into the infinity of possibilities. If your interaction can be anywhere, its possibilities are endless. What it can do for people and what it can tell people... is potentially endless.

Contact us to learn about our expertise and how we can help you design simply useful, usable mobile interactions.