Research / Reports on Mobile Usability

Few days back, I was reading some article related to Mobile Usability on Jakob Nielsen’s website . I found it quite interesting and so trying to put in some facts which I think should be useful for us to understand the scenario.

To understand usability factors that makes mobile sites easy or an unpleasant experience, Jakob Nielsen had combined 3 different usability testing methods, namely: 1) Diary Study 2) User Testing 3) Cross-platform review.

Mobile devices’ users face several usability obstacles to overcome with, like Small Screens, Difficult / non-easy ways of input, bandwidth / download time issues and worst of all, badly designed website.

Surprisingly, as per the Jakob Nielsen’s tests which were designed to test participants using those sites which were specifically designed for mobile devices, their “average success rate” was 64% which is quite higher than the 53% success rate recorded for the “full sites”. And, as Jakob thinks, this is a enough powerful reason to start developing mobile optimized websites.

This “mobile usability” has several interesting facts unconvered. You can read the complete article here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html

Some Resources:

Mobile Web – Navigation Design

Mobile Web Applications – Design factors

In this series of posts about “mobile web application development strategies’, we will discuss about ‘advantages of mobile web platform, strategizing for mobile web, initiating a mobile web project’ and much more will be added as and when possible.

To begin with, we will understand how mobile web is promising.

Advantages of Mobile Web platform:

Anywhere-Anytime information access:
Unlike conventional desktop-based computing, mobile web has surpassed the limitation of immobility. With mobile devices, users can access information anywhere, anytime when they are in the cell phone connectivity coverage area or using a WI-FI hotspot.

Wireless Internet Connectivity:
Users are now having access to internet on their mobile devices or accesses internet through their mobile devices.

Leveraging Application / Device capabilities:
Services / Applications now can take the advantage of in-built capabilities of mobile devices, like clicking on a phone number can help users to call the respective number with no hassles involved.

Geography-based Content Delivery:
Location-based technologies are enabling the end-users to receive the content based on the location. Such localized content delivery mechanism is helping users to get the desired content with minimal efforts, which leads to a better user experience and benefits to the respective service provider as well.

Strategizing for mobile web:

When an organization decides to design a website or an application targeted at mobile web users, they need to consider several factors like:

• Why should we make / create a mobile web application?
• Does the content delivered on mobile devices make sense for the TG? Is it really adding value to their usage?
• What kind of content can be made available online? Do we deliver useful content?
• We have a very powerful flash-based website. Should we create a similar application User Interface (UI) for mobile devices as well? Will it work across multiple device profiles?

Precisely, before we start working on a mobile web application, we must be aware of all aspects like advantages and limitations the mobile web platform has and also about how to leverage this platform for an organizations’ and end-users’ advantage. We must be clear about ‘whether creating a mobile web application can really add value’ to the respective website as well for the end-users / TG.

As this is a series of posts, we will continue with “Initiating a mobile web project” in the continuing post.

A usable navigation design improves the end-users experience and makes sure that users don’t leave the website due to frustration as they are not able to use your website on their mobile device.

While designing websites specifically for mobile devices, there are several factors which you will have to consider. In this article, we will discuss particularly about “navigation design for mobile websites”. You can read more about Usability Factors for mobile web as well as Design Factors for mobile web.

Here, we will discuss some important aspects of navigation design for mobile websites:

1.Provide only minimal navigation at the top of the page:
Only basic navigation to help users enhance the experience by reducing clutter for these relatively small screens. Core links upfront also help users to navigate across the application easily without getting much frustrated. In case of footer links, provide very few (2-3) and only if it’s really essential and helps users.

Provide only minimal navigation.

2. Balanced Site Structure:
Unlike desktop-based browsers, mobile web browsers has too many limitations like screen size, hardware’s processing capabilities, memory, etc. Scrolling too much could be painful for the users on such devices. So, the information architecture will need to take care of this balance between that will help end-users to reach the desired content with minimal links.

Inessential links or steps added to get the desired content make users frustrated and they simple stop using the site.

3.  Consistent Navigation Mechanism:
The way users navigation on mobile devices is not as easy as pointing devices like mouse on a desktop and they have to rely on joysticks / 4-way navigation or keypad. In such a case, using a consistent navigation method helps a lot.

A “drill-down” navigation mechanism in such interface can help end-users, as it is based on the major headings that take you inside it based on your preferences. For example, someone who wants to see what’s available in movies or music can be directed to the same using main heading link as “entertainment”. Also, we should make sure that links that takes him to main homepage or category homepage are available, e.g. home, entertainment, up, back to top.

Consistent Navigation Mechanism

Make sure you keep these links minimal required and steps to get the desired content also very minimal, as users may not be interested in going for more retrievals or clicks to get the content he / she is looking for. Also, some form of breadcrumbs can help them to track their trail as well as to go back easily.

4. Device-based Access Keys:
Unlike traditional desktop computing, mobile device is not capable of relatively easy-to-use point device (but is bit easier in smart-phones with some point device like stylus). In such a case, we should use the built-in capabilities of the keys built on the device, which are keyboard shortcuts for a mobile device. Users can press a number on the keyboard to go to a link associated with.

Also, make sure that same access key assigned a link is used across the application for the same link.

5. Description for the link:
Provide information related to a link. For example, if a link is directed to a file which may not be supported by the end-users device, it may be frustrating for him as he isn’t ware of the kind of file type is linked with that particular link. Handsets which don’t support videos etc. may show undesired response and may frustrate the end-user.

6. Do not Use Image Maps-based navigation:
Even though it’s an effective way to navigate by using client or server-side image maps, most of the mobile devices don’t support them. Also, usage of images as navigation should be avoided as end-users with information-seeking behavior tend to disable loading images and your navigation may go completely invisible for the end-user, as browsing websites on mobile devices do involve data usage charges to the end-users and they may be simply not interested in viewing those images as they have to pay for it.

There could be more ways to design a better navigation for mobile web. Please contribute them here if you can think of anything.

Below given are some of these websites which I liked. I would recommend you to check them out to understand how we can deliver the best-of-the-class rich user experience even on mobile devices. They still may not be perfect & we need to learn from it. I would like to hear from you if you have not liked something specific to any one of these and why.

Google
Google’s web services
http://m.google.com

http://m.google.com

Yahoo!
Mobile edition for search, news, mail and more
http://m.yahoo.com/

http://m.yahoo.com

eBay
http://iphone.ebay.com (designed to suit best for Apple iPhone)

http://iphone.ebay.com

Amazon.com
World’s leading online retailer’s mobile website
http://www.amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com

ESPN
News, updates and scores from ESPN & is optimized for iPhone.
http://m.espn.com

http://m.espn.com

BBC NEWS
Largest broadcasting corporation in the world
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile

New York Public Library
http://m.nypl.org

http://m.nypl.org

If you have seen some mobile edition websites and good enough as a reference, please submit those URLs.

Here, we will discuss something about the “design factors for mobile web applications”. As we have already discussed, there are several limitations. You can read more about limitations here!

Following are some of these guidelines which needs to be considered while designing mobile web applications, so that it can deliver its best on multiple platforms in almost same way it is intended to. Ultimately, mobile web apps are intended to deliver quickly , on-the-move!

Design Factors for Mobile Web Applications:

1. Semantic Markup:
The way we design our code for conventional desktop-based web is NOT the same when it comes to the “mobile web”. The capabilities of the devices and the browsers it contains, has major impacts on the way content gets displayed.

So, ideally, you should use a “clean & semantic” markup to make your site display in almost the same form on all the devices, without major difficulties for the end-user. If the code isn’t clean & semantic, the website may not look the same on all the target devices as it is expected to be & may create usability issues for the end-users, motivating them to leave the site as soon as they want.

Clean, semantic markup is a ‘foundation to the usable mobile website’.

2. Separate Content from Presentation factor:
Typical mobile web users are more keen on the information they like to see on the mobile websites, as their browsing behavior is mostly ‘information seeking behavior’.  For such users, presentation is secondary, as compared to ‘content being primary reason’ behind the mobile web browsing.

Users are using web on their mobile devices, generally for their immediate needs, like locating the nearest café or a Bank ATM available in the closest proximity. For such users, functionality or the content is more important than anything else.

Considering this, along with a clean & semantic markup, a clear segregation of “Content” and “Presentation” is required. We can enable websites to reach users faster, with clean, valid markup and CSS for the presentation purpose.

3. Alternative Content – “ALT” tags:
With more of ‘information-seeking behavior’ along with ‘pay-for-bandwidth’ scenario, users may not prefer to download images on their mobile browsers, as it saves download time & money for them. Such factors makes us prefer to provide an alternative content for all the images used across the website.

Providing an “ALT” tag makes the application more useful for those who have disabled “load images”. In any case, for mobile web or desktop-based interfaces, you MUST provide the alternative content, to make your application “usable”.

4. Form Fields – Labels:
Filling up form fields in the mobile browser is bit tough as compared to  conventional desktop-based website forms. Entering information in the form field without knowing what it should be filled with, is literally impossible for the end-user.

So to assist users, like ‘ALT’ tags for non-text content, form fields also needs to have “label”, that clearly defines the form field and instruct the users about the information required in the respective form field.

5. Navigation:
Unlike desktop web, navigation elements on the mobile web applications are generally an “adaptation”, that suits mobile web environment at its best. Navigation design for desktop web and mobile web has different design considerations.

Do not repeat the complete navigation on every page & reduce the links and keep only those which are relevant.Also, provide other ways to navigate the website, such as “Access Keys” and tap the hardware capabilities if you know the TG & their devices.

6. Use Heading tags – H1, H2, ….. :
Devices have their own browsers & they render the same sites differently. In such cases, styling given to the text / content on the pages may not actually display as you desire.

In such cases, heading tags like H1, H1, H3…..can help you to make the important headings, text to stand out & helps users to read the content effectively – as they tend to have a ‘scan-through’ behavior.

7. Environmental Factors & Color Contrasts:
Designing websites for mobile devices has several considerations, including the environmental factors, such as lighting conditions. When someone who is using the application the day-light, he may not be able to use the application effectively, if the right color contrast is not created in the application design.

Mobile Web Applications - Design Factors: Mr. Movie homepage

Mobile Web Applications - Design Factors: Bcwebwise mobile edition homepage

Note: Compare these two screen-shots. Readability is higher in the 2nd screen-shot of BC Web Wise – mobile web edition homepage.

You can view this complete presentation on SlideShare.net at: http://www.slideshare.net/vishalvaidya/mobile-web-application-design-factors

If you can bring in some more ideas here when it comes to mobile web application design & its usability, I would be really happy! Please post your comments / suggestions.

1. Make sure that basic controls are always available!
   Make sure you place basic controls to navigate on the site, such as “back to home, back to search results” & relevant ones.  Use contextual menus if required & only if they are assisting the user (preferably limited to 2-3 short links). In most of the cases, though devices / browsers has a ‘back’ button option, it is advisable to include a back button on every page.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

2. Environmental Factors:
   Imagine, using a website / application which has saturated or dark-colored interface in a bright light conditions! If you do, you will not be able to see the interface clearly & the application usefulness may reduce. So, you should know the users & their possible environment in which they may use this application and you have to design the site accordingly. Such factors like lighting conditions does affect the visual design affecting the usefulness of your application in such environments. Note: Compare the above screen shot with other examples shown in the presentation. Readability is higher in other screen shots.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

3. Mobile-device-friendly visual designs / layouts:
   Visual designs for mobile sites / apps, unlike for desktop browsers, are different in terms of layouts (no landscape preferably as most of the device will render the sites to suit to portrait form), usage of graphical elements (to be kept viable to optimize the download speed & to reduce the data usage for being cost-effective for the end-user). Precisely, you need a quite different & sensible visual design (keeping in mind the brand elements, etc.) for mobile applications as against the conventional desktop-based websites, to optimize the user experience.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

You can view this complete presentation on SlideShare.net at: http://www.slideshare.net/vishalvaidya/usability-factors-mobile-web-apps-usability-factors-0209

Please post your comments & suggestions! Thanks!!!

NOTE: All the mobile website screenshots shown are owned by bcwebwise. Copyright © 2009. Bcwebwise. All Rights Reserved with Bc Web Wise.

Though, it’s ‘always-with you’, ‘personalized’ way to access internet, it has several limitations. Let’s understand the limitations of the mobile web application environment:

Limitations:

• Screen ‘Real Estate’ issues: resolution limitations as compared to desktops / notebooks / netbooks.
• Browsers: Various browser renders site differently on different devices.
• Hardware limitations: Processor speed, RAM, ROM, Form factor
• Expensive Data Usage: Data usage charges may be heavy.
• Connectivity issues: Bandwidth, Network reach.
• Limited Interaction possibilities: Less-friendly pointing device.

We can ‘enhance’ the user experience of web on mobile, by following certain guidelines, to overcome limitations as much as possible.

While we design the site / applications that’s suits best to various mobile devices / browsers / connectivity aspects, we MUST consider several ‘factors’ that contributes to a better ‘mobile web user experience. Ideally, we should follow as much as of these guidelines, so that the site / applications designed for mobile-specific environment becomes more usable. Better the user experience, more the successful application would be!

Here we start…

1. Address users’ requirements as ‘quickly’ as possible:
   Generally, users are accessing the web on mobile for their immediate needs, for e.g. locating the nearest cafe or finding the closest Theater or for a short-spanned entertainment.  In Such users, “quickness” makes a lot of difference, time being a ‘crucial’ factor. In such cases, understanding the users’ immediate requirements & assisting them to fulfill them quickly enhance the experience of your application.
2. DO NOT repeat the navigation on every page:
   Screen “real estate” is very valuable & precious when it comes to mobile devices & so, needs to be used wisely. Mobile devices have varied screen sizes. For such various but limited screen sizes, what gets delivered upfront, “above the fold”, does make a difference.  DO NOT repeat the main navigation on every page, as it pushes the content down, generally “below the fold” making it inaccessible for the user. Also, make sure you place it on the homepage as that being an entry point to the site.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

3. Make user inputs simpler:
   Entering text on a mobile phone can be more painful than on a conventional desktop-based input mechanisms. Make sure your design allows the users to input the text in an easier way. Allow them to choose by selecting an item instead of manually entering the text (as it’s even more error-prone). Also, use the markup to assist certain features in the content. For example, a Telephone number displayed can be used to call the particular no right from there itself, instead of copying the phone number or manually entering it on the dial pad.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

4. Indicate clearly what is selected:
   Mobile phones generally have lesser cursor control, as the pointing device is either joystick or the directive buttons on the phone. But, even these controls may not work as desired as sometimes choosing the selection can scroll down the page if the control is not selected properly. So, indicating what’s selected is another important factor so that user doesn’t get frustrated by selecting something wrong which he didn’t intend to. Show the selected link by highlighting it with different color or something similar & viable. Some browsers has built-in mechanisms that automatically indicates when a user is on a certain control or link in the page.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

5. Inessential stuff to be kept out:
   Provide only essential & relevant information on every page. User’s generally pay for all the content they see on their devices & so, for them, any inessential data downloaded is a pain, because THEY have to pay for the content they never wanted to see & gets frustrated. Reading habits would also vary from desktop to mobile device. Content designed for mobile web also needs to be crisp & to the point, as the users will not be interested in reading any typical junk on their devices which they are not interested in & have to pay for it.
   

   Usability for Mobile Web Applications

There is more for this usability for mobile web applications.  In the next post, I will explain some more points which are important for mobile web applications  & its usability.

I would be happy if you can post your comments / suggestions which wil help us to enhance our approach to mobile web development. Kindly contribute!

Updates: read 2nd part of this post