A recent blog posed the interesting question of whether we need an app for every mobile web site out there. The obvious answer is of course no, but judging from what is going on in the world of Apps right now it looks like the answer is yes. After all, what other way do you have to get your mobile web site onto the icon deck of the iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Symbian smart phones? You simply have to turn it into a colorful icon and submit it to your App store of choice – or all of them for that matter. This ‘battle for icon space’ has created an interesting world of bookmarks posing as apps with colorful icons. I for one am interested to find out how many of the purported 250,000 iPhone apps are simply bookmarks with an icon.
Is there anything wrong with this trend? Well, it kind of defeats the purpose of the 'available anywhere to anyone' mobile web and the tools we have for explore, search and browse for mobile web sites and content we are interested in. If this trend continues we will need an app browser to explore, search and browse the mobile app space. And we will need separate ones for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Symbian. The problem with this scenario is that it replaces the open world of the mobile web with proprietary silos of apps.
What is really needed is a user interface that merges the icon space of today’s phone deck app launchers with the capabilities of the web browser/search function. A user interface where a web site or result can be turned into an icon and placed on the phone app deck. A good name for such a user interface is a mobile web/app launcher that creates a user experience where apps and sites are treated the same. Do mobile web/app launchers exist? Yes, but more about that in a later blog.
The mobileWeb in all its forms - UE (user experience) - UI (user interface) - trends - markets - apps, sites, widgets, feeds - platforms - SDKs - even technology
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Do App icons have to be square?
To be square means being conventional and boring and there is something slightly boring about today’s mobile phone user interfaces. What was clearly influenced by the icon usage on personal computers became the norm for mobile phones and most application interfaces on today’s phones are matrixes of square icons - or more often pages and pages of square icons! As screen resolutions are getting better, the squares have become more colorful and even ‘3D’ and some nearly sparkle – which all makes for a nice visual effect. Critics call this eye candy, but it works as long as you have a relatively limited set of applications. By using colors, symbols and characters it is certainly possible to create a thousand different icons that our eyes can easily distinguish between. But beyond that – now that we are in the 200,000 range it becomes more difficult.
One solution is to make the icons active so that a descriptor window pops up when we navigate past the icon. This eliminates any constraints as far as describing and branding the application – but without that ‘pop up window’ – it is difficult to quickly glance at icons and remember what they do. What can be done?
Sometimes the answer is simpler than the question appears. If we give up the square 1:1 ratio icons and replace them with rectangular 3:1 icons we can suddenly start to put text in the icons or mix logos with text. As our human mind is used to reading text the ability to clearly read, say 2 lines of 15 characters each, removes all limitations on icon recognition and makes the user experience much better. So instead of recognizing and remembering a square icon, why not just read the text in a rectangular one! Do such mobile application interfaces exist? Yes, but more about this in a later blog!
App icons do not have to be square – bring out exciting rectangles!
One solution is to make the icons active so that a descriptor window pops up when we navigate past the icon. This eliminates any constraints as far as describing and branding the application – but without that ‘pop up window’ – it is difficult to quickly glance at icons and remember what they do. What can be done?
Sometimes the answer is simpler than the question appears. If we give up the square 1:1 ratio icons and replace them with rectangular 3:1 icons we can suddenly start to put text in the icons or mix logos with text. As our human mind is used to reading text the ability to clearly read, say 2 lines of 15 characters each, removes all limitations on icon recognition and makes the user experience much better. So instead of recognizing and remembering a square icon, why not just read the text in a rectangular one! Do such mobile application interfaces exist? Yes, but more about this in a later blog!
App icons do not have to be square – bring out exciting rectangles!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Good Mobile Search - Content or Look & Feel?
There is a lot going on in mobile search right now and the notion of mobile friendly results is coming to the forefront. So what exactly are mobile friendly results? Dumb question? Well it depends on the answer.
Most people can agree that mobile friendly results are results that work well on a mobile device, whether a mobile browser, feed reader or media player. They also should correspond to the capabilities of each phone. So if you have a large screen, high resolution is important and if you have a touch screen the results should be touch-friendly. As touch screens are the latest and greatest, there are even companies specializing in providing a search portal with touch friendly results.
Are we moving to a world with search portals for every phone category? Hopefully not, as the look, feel and usability of search results is of less concern than actually getting search results that corresponds to what the user is looking for, content rather than look and feel, one could say. As lengthy search queries are tedious to enter on a phone, we want relevant results from simple search terms. Let us use the search term fun as an example. Are we looking for jokes, games, amusement parks, movies or something fun to do close to where we are? Good mobile search results should give you results in a way so that you can quickly get to which one of these you are actually looking for. And they should do that without having to use a different portal or app for each result type. Is this possible? Yes, but more about this in a later blog.
In the meantime, try entering fun on your phone search and see how quickly you get to what you have in mind!
Most people can agree that mobile friendly results are results that work well on a mobile device, whether a mobile browser, feed reader or media player. They also should correspond to the capabilities of each phone. So if you have a large screen, high resolution is important and if you have a touch screen the results should be touch-friendly. As touch screens are the latest and greatest, there are even companies specializing in providing a search portal with touch friendly results.
Are we moving to a world with search portals for every phone category? Hopefully not, as the look, feel and usability of search results is of less concern than actually getting search results that corresponds to what the user is looking for, content rather than look and feel, one could say. As lengthy search queries are tedious to enter on a phone, we want relevant results from simple search terms. Let us use the search term fun as an example. Are we looking for jokes, games, amusement parks, movies or something fun to do close to where we are? Good mobile search results should give you results in a way so that you can quickly get to which one of these you are actually looking for. And they should do that without having to use a different portal or app for each result type. Is this possible? Yes, but more about this in a later blog.
In the meantime, try entering fun on your phone search and see how quickly you get to what you have in mind!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Mobile Web’s Ugly Duckling - RSS
When something that seems to be ideal for mobile phone use is relegated to a separate position and treated as an anomaly, the HC Andersen story of the Ugly Duckling comes to mind. How else can one explain the treatment that RSS feeds receive from mobile browsers and apps where they are lumped into separate RSS tabs or applications? When it comes to the mobile web, RSS feeds are clearly not treated as equals of web sites or apps. Now why is that? Before we answer this question, let us take a look at Real Simple Syndication feeds.
In their most commonly used form, they are feeds of headlines and updates from news media, magazines, web sites and blogs, but they are also summaries of news, events, store offerings, magazine articles and even twitter feeds. If well written they are like headlines and the first paragraph in a good newspaper article or catalog entry, designed to want you to read the whole article or buy a product. Granted, everything does not lend itself to RSS summaries, but when it does, RSS headlines and summaries are probably the best way of quickly cover large amounts of information in a small space. And the good news is that there are hundreds of thousands of them.
Needless to say, this format is ideal for mobile phones where limited screen size and usage patterns make condensed info a plus. But how do you find them and how do you add them to your mobile apps? Here the bad news starts as RSS feeds have somehow taken on a separate ugly duckling status! Many phones and phone browsers support RSS feeds, but then often as a separate 'RSS reader' in a tab, app or function recognized by the orange RSS button. In order to read an RSS feeds you need to open a special RSS reader and then painstakingly find and add the RSS feeds you want to follow to your RSS reader. So what in many ways is the ideal information presentation format for mobile phones, has instead become a difficult to use special application.
What is needed is a user experience where an RSS feed is treated like any other application with its own app icon, ease of discovery and simple user interface. Given that many news and web sites have multiple RSS feeds, it would not hurt if the RSS app was able to simultaneously display say the news and sports feed from one publication under a common app name! RSS feeds can then become the information swan they really are instead of an ugly duckling!
Are there such user experiences for mobile phones? The answer is YES, but more about this in a later blog.
In their most commonly used form, they are feeds of headlines and updates from news media, magazines, web sites and blogs, but they are also summaries of news, events, store offerings, magazine articles and even twitter feeds. If well written they are like headlines and the first paragraph in a good newspaper article or catalog entry, designed to want you to read the whole article or buy a product. Granted, everything does not lend itself to RSS summaries, but when it does, RSS headlines and summaries are probably the best way of quickly cover large amounts of information in a small space. And the good news is that there are hundreds of thousands of them.
Needless to say, this format is ideal for mobile phones where limited screen size and usage patterns make condensed info a plus. But how do you find them and how do you add them to your mobile apps? Here the bad news starts as RSS feeds have somehow taken on a separate ugly duckling status! Many phones and phone browsers support RSS feeds, but then often as a separate 'RSS reader' in a tab, app or function recognized by the orange RSS button. In order to read an RSS feeds you need to open a special RSS reader and then painstakingly find and add the RSS feeds you want to follow to your RSS reader. So what in many ways is the ideal information presentation format for mobile phones, has instead become a difficult to use special application.
What is needed is a user experience where an RSS feed is treated like any other application with its own app icon, ease of discovery and simple user interface. Given that many news and web sites have multiple RSS feeds, it would not hurt if the RSS app was able to simultaneously display say the news and sports feed from one publication under a common app name! RSS feeds can then become the information swan they really are instead of an ugly duckling!
Are there such user experiences for mobile phones? The answer is YES, but more about this in a later blog.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Not so fast – Browser Web Rendering and Search are Different
We are so used to the PC-based web that we sometimes fail to recognize that what we have on the phone is something very different. A good way to look at this is to separate web rendering from search. Let us start with rendering!
Does the site look good on the phone and is it usable? Two very different questions that are not necessarily related as looking good have to do with design, colors, eye candy, pictures etc. Usability means that the mobile phone user can quickly find what they look for and use site related menus, entry-fields and links. It also means that there is some immediacy between hitting enter and getting results back! By this standard, most real web sites fail miserably when presented on a phone browser. Mobile web sites do much better although their usability differs between phones. However, recent attempts to ‘standardize’ browser rendering with ‘web-kit’ based solutions is certainly a step in the right direction as it makes it much easier for web site developers to develop sites that look good and are usable on a number of phones and phone platforms from different manufacturers!
But what good are good looking usable sites if you can’t find them? As most of us do not walk around with memorized URLs in our head, we depend on having a search function that is usable. So are today’s phone search any good? Well, not really. As a start, search results that generate long lists of web sites without regard to whether they are usable or not do not constitute a good user experience. Nor do lists of general results that are not what we are looking for. We also do not want to have to type in several words just to get back results that are too narrow. And what about the search engines that supposedly give us mobile friendly results, how do we incorporate them in our search. Finally, once we have found what interest us and the site looks really usable, we want to add it to our favorites so we can refer to the site often. Bookmarks? Tabs? Well a lot of questions but no clear emerging solutions for search that really works on a mobile.
So while rendering seems to be heading in the right direction mobile search still leaves a lot to be desired. More on that in a later blog!
Does the site look good on the phone and is it usable? Two very different questions that are not necessarily related as looking good have to do with design, colors, eye candy, pictures etc. Usability means that the mobile phone user can quickly find what they look for and use site related menus, entry-fields and links. It also means that there is some immediacy between hitting enter and getting results back! By this standard, most real web sites fail miserably when presented on a phone browser. Mobile web sites do much better although their usability differs between phones. However, recent attempts to ‘standardize’ browser rendering with ‘web-kit’ based solutions is certainly a step in the right direction as it makes it much easier for web site developers to develop sites that look good and are usable on a number of phones and phone platforms from different manufacturers!
But what good are good looking usable sites if you can’t find them? As most of us do not walk around with memorized URLs in our head, we depend on having a search function that is usable. So are today’s phone search any good? Well, not really. As a start, search results that generate long lists of web sites without regard to whether they are usable or not do not constitute a good user experience. Nor do lists of general results that are not what we are looking for. We also do not want to have to type in several words just to get back results that are too narrow. And what about the search engines that supposedly give us mobile friendly results, how do we incorporate them in our search. Finally, once we have found what interest us and the site looks really usable, we want to add it to our favorites so we can refer to the site often. Bookmarks? Tabs? Well a lot of questions but no clear emerging solutions for search that really works on a mobile.
So while rendering seems to be heading in the right direction mobile search still leaves a lot to be desired. More on that in a later blog!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Apps & Sites - Widgets & Feeds ....
One of the favors bestowed by the iPhone was a common name for the icons on the user interface – they are all called apps which is short and simple. There is no distinction between a web site bookmark in the form of a colorful square and the colorful square that opens an application running on the iPhone processor utilizing all its impressive computing and rendering capabilities. This brings great simplicity to the user who does not have to worry what hides behind the colorful square! For them it is all the same whether it is a cell phone application, a bookmark or a widget – a third category!
Hmm, so how many categories can hide behind a colorful square? Well, there are of course ‘phone functions’ like placing calls, messaging etc. But if we stick with applications or web applications, there seems to be at least two more in use, the browser and the feed (or RSS) reader. I am sure the reader can come up with more but let us stick with these five:
Does the everyday user care about these distinctions? Most likely not and if one or more can be combined so that we have fewer categories, we would have fewer functions, less confusion and a better user experience. More on that in a later blog!
Hmm, so how many categories can hide behind a colorful square? Well, there are of course ‘phone functions’ like placing calls, messaging etc. But if we stick with applications or web applications, there seems to be at least two more in use, the browser and the feed (or RSS) reader. I am sure the reader can come up with more but let us stick with these five:
- phone application
- web bookmark
- widget
- browser
- feed reader
Does the everyday user care about these distinctions? Most likely not and if one or more can be combined so that we have fewer categories, we would have fewer functions, less confusion and a better user experience. More on that in a later blog!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Finding what you want quickly!
If you are like most people, patience is not in great supply when you use the mobile web on the phone. NOW is the word that comes to mind and most of the time the user knows what they want because they have used an app or visited a site before. On most phones this leaves the user searching for an app logo or opening their browser to find a bookmark! Neither of these is particularly quick when you have more than 12 apps of 5 bookmarks not to mention that you also have to remember whether it is an app or a bookmark.
It seems like phone user interfaces are not designed to handle a lot of mobile web sites and applications individually or at the same time and are certainly not designed to quickly get you to what you want. So there is both a need and opportunity for innovation in a couple of areas:
Well, not necessarily – there are companies bringing out enhanced user interface shells and application launchers that innovate in the areas described. To date many are focused of high end smart phones but there are one or two exceptions. More about these in a later blog!
It seems like phone user interfaces are not designed to handle a lot of mobile web sites and applications individually or at the same time and are certainly not designed to quickly get you to what you want. So there is both a need and opportunity for innovation in a couple of areas:
- A user interface that accommodates 50-100 apps and bookmarks and at the same time make them easy to find and use
- A user interface that combines app icons and bookmarks eliminating the need for a separate browser app.
- As we are all different, we also want a user interface that we can personalize and organize the way we want. My mobileWeb comes to mind!
Well, not necessarily – there are companies bringing out enhanced user interface shells and application launchers that innovate in the areas described. To date many are focused of high end smart phones but there are one or two exceptions. More about these in a later blog!
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