I have a two year old nephew who enjoys being the centre of attention. At a recent family gathering he clearly felt that he wasn’t being paid enough attention and so was demonstratively putting his point across. He wanted to watch CBeebies. Being ignored he decided to take matters into his own hands and wandered over to the TV where he proceeded to tap and prod at it. He was clearly quite confused as to why it wasn’t reacting to his commands. The day before he had been happily swiping Angry Birds across the screen of my iPod touch. Surely everything should react this way!

This is why mobile matters.

The Internet changed everything

The Internet changed everything, and the pace of change has been incredible. From its humble beginnings helping Dungeons and Dragons players find pixelated porn to its full integration into every aspect of virtually everyones life, the meteoric rise of the Internet has been unstoppable. Today it’s used to find information, plan routes, compare prices, book holidays and theatre tickets, purchase goods and services and cheat at pub quizzes. It has permeated every aspect of our work and social lives.

Social media, through the mediums of Twitter, Facebook and the like is now our main source of review and recommendation. These networks are able to break and track international news stories quicker than the main stream, traditional, news outlets. Social media has been an advertising revolution. Find us on Facebook is now the default end point of any TV ad.

Businesses must be online to survive. Time was that the Yellow Pages was the place to go to find a florist or a bookshop. Now Google is king and the Internet is our source of all such information. Businesses must have a website to simply be found. Location is not important. We can buy things from online stores without even knowing where they are.

1. Google
2. Purchase from random site
3. Goods arrive
4. Simple

Mobile changes it all again

But here we are, in the middle the mobile revolution, and it has all changed again. Now your users are not attached to their desks. The context in which they are accessing your goods and services is not fixed or consistent. They might be sat on the sofa, talking to their friends, having dinner, waiting at a bus stop, they could be anywhere. They might be in bright sunshine, or a noisy train station. They might have broadband wifi or slow GPRS, or even no connectivity at all.

Our mobile devices are personal. They hold personal data and have access to personal accounts. For many the mobile is the first thing that they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night. We take these devices with us everywhere and they are always on, always connected.

This convenience has led to a change in the type of sessions that users are engaging in. Users are now having more frequent sessions but they are much shorter; constantly dipping in and out throughout the day, stealing a few seconds online here and there. There is also an emotional attachment to these devices which affects the way in which users view the services that they access through them. Your mobile is an extension of oneself. It always feels a little bit odd to pass your phone on for somebody to ‘borrow’. Consequently if the service has a negative impact on the mobile device the impact on how the user perceives the service provider is magnified. You can read a little more about this here.

A major milestone in relentless growth

With over a billion smart phones now in use around the world it is expected that access to the Internet via a mobile device will overtake that of a desktop by the end of 2013. This estimate seems to be continually revised as the explosive growth in the adoption of this technology continues to exceed expectations.

There are lots of statistics being thrown around which you can adapt to suit your own purposes but one number really stood out to me that the number of feature phones (camera phones of the not so smart variety) is now in decline; dropping 4% in Q4 2011. This may not seem like a headline figure but what it says is that the default device that is being handed out to those who have no preference, but just need a new contract, is a smart device. Where it became impossible to not own a feature phone, it will soon become impossible to not own a smartphone. Consumers will have a smartphone even if they do not know what one is. This is a major milestone.

Driven by youth

The huge growth in mobile is being driven by young people. According to the office of national statistics (sept. 2011) 75% of all 16-25 year olds access the Internet while they are out and about. Smartphones and Tablet computers are replacing TV’s & Laptops in the lives of our teenagers and young adults. This shows that we have at least another 10 years of growth in the use of mobile technology and if you are not interested in this demographic yet, as they grow older, you well be.

More than just a mobile website

When you come to considering the development of your mobile strategy there is much more to think about than developing a mobile website. No longer are we to simple think about screen sizes and resolutions. It’s the context of the user that is having the greatest impact on how our content and services are being consumed. Questions like; where is my user, what are they doing, who are they with, do they have a reliable connection, is it noisy and a host of others to do with their surroundings are now key pieces of information when developing, designing and delivering services and content. As Tablets replace the family desktop and laptops and as Smartphones continue to take their place as the goto device to get that quick, online, job done, simply offering a stripped down version of whats on the desktop website is not enough.

An enterprise revolution

As mobile devices win the hearts and minds of consumers this is having the inevitable impact on the workforce too. The way in which we do business is changing. Our employees are now coming to expect the same level of portability and responsiveness that permeates other areas of their digital lives, in the workplace. Lots of roles within organisations have no need of workhorse desktops and laptops. Reading and writing short documents and using a web browser are now the domain of the Tablet. Tablets seem like the obvious choice of sales people on the road, pickers in the warehouses and sales assistants in stores. Smart devices in enterprise are soon to become the norm.

Mobile has changed everything

Mobile has changed the experience of us all as we interact online. The nature of these interactions is changing our expectations of the experience of our digital lives. The emotional connection that we form with our personal devices can lead to a very negative impression of an organisation should the experience not live up to our new expectations. Mobile has changed everything and it is now time to look at the impact of mobile apps and mobile web on your organisation and to develop a mobile strategy that will serve you going forward.

If you need any help developing a mobile strategy or simply want to discuss anything raised in this post then get in touch with Rob.

My mobile phone is an extension of me. Everything I do in my day to day life is through my phone in some form. It holds my photos, my music, my videos, my calendar, my email. I interact with my social networks through it, I answer life’s little questions with it. I kill time with it and I catch up with distant friends with it. I even make the occasional call. It’s always on my person, never out of reach. And I’m sorry to have to admit that it’s the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in morning. But I’m guessing I’m not alone.

This time it’s personal

You must have had that sinking feeling when somebody, for whatever reason, asks to have a look at your phone. Or even worse, use it to “check something”. You know that you have to allow this. You have to pass your shiny device into the hands of another. There is no socially acceptable way to not. But as you do, you know that a little piece of you is now at the mercy of an outsider. They have access to your world!

Because of the amount of time we spend with our smart devices, and the things that we use them for, we form an emotional connection with them. We are protective of them and do not tolerate lightly anything that may interfere with the normal running of them.

This is why your organisation must consider mobile when developing an online strategy. We are using mobile devices to access services and interact online with increasing regularity. Very soon (some estimates place it at 2014) there will be more people interacting online via a mobile device than via a traditional desktop / laptop. Our online behaviour is changing and this time it’s personal.

If I attempt to use your services or access your content and it doesn’t play nicely with my smartphone it is quite possible that I will not only find it frustrating, but I will offended by it. How dare you break my shiny device? This may sound a little strong but the emotional connection that I have formed with my device, that is an extension of myself, could lead me to place a black mark against your organisation if you didn’t deem it worth your time to consider me when providing your services.

Blue screen of death

If you are developing apps then they need to not crash my phone, access or share my data without permission, or negatively impact my experience of using my device in any way. When software produced a “blue screen of death” on windows then, no matter what happen or why, it was the stupid computers fault. If your app “breaks” my phone, no matter how or why, it’s your fault!

If your website is unreadable or unusable on my touch screen device then it shows that you were not interested in me. Forcing me to use a traditional internet access method (if I still have access to one) means that I am not important to you. And fobbing me off with a poorly implemented mobile alternative site that leaves me thinking that I’m missing something and looking for the “show full site link” makes me feel like you just don’t care.

It’s been emotional

Mobile device use invokes an emotional reaction. This means that the damage that can be done to the image of your organisation is greatly increased. If you have not yet considered mobile in your online strategy then do so soon. Before you do any more damage.

Everybody is talking mobile. Smart phones and tablets are changing the way that your users interact with content and online services. 45% of people interact with online content while out and about. That rises to 70% for 16-25s. (UK Sept. 2011). As an online provider you must engage with this emerging market or face losing customers. So what are the options?

Download the fact sheet

Do nothing

This might not be as crazy as it sounds.

There is a case for allowing your site to be rendered in all of it’s desktop browser glory on some mobile devices. For high end devices such as the iPhone or iPad, where users are used to panning and zooming, why give them a watered down version of your service?

This is certainly the cheapest option. However, the Tablet is more than a small PC and the Smart Phone is not just a small Tablet. These are distinct devices with unique user behavior and context. To maximize your impact on such devices they need to be considered independently.

Adaptive Design

This approach automatically applies a specific style to a site, when it is viewed in a browser of a predefine size. This can be on a desktop when the browser is resized or when it is viewed on a device with a smaller screen. This approach allows you to define a specific view, of the same content, per screen size (or device). This enables you to tailor the visual appearance of your site to each device, without needing separate mobile websites.

This is a relatively simple way of tailoring your website or application to specific mobile devices without having to redesign your existing desktop version. However, it does require you know which screen sizes and devices you are targeting in advanced.

Responsive Design

Unlike ‘adaptive’ design, ‘responsive’ design does not require you to know your target screen sizes from the beginning.

The page will rearrange content constantly as the screen changes size. While you may still define specific screen sizes at which your page changes layout, taking a ‘responsive’ design approach means that your site will be optimised for all potential screen dimension.

This offers a degree of future proofing. This is worth considering as new mobile devices are constantly being released and you do not know what size the next shiny new device will be.

There is a degree of extra complexity in this approach which will often

be reflected in development time scales and, ultimately, cost.

Web app

Typically built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, web apps provides the ability to tailor user experience to their mobile device rather than simply reconfiguring the same content that a desktop user would receive.

Web apps will work on any device that uses a modern mobile web browser making them universal; cross platform applications. This maximizes your potential audience with a single implementation; you do not need a different version

for Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. This reduces development costs.

However, web apps are limited in their functionality and user experience to what can be provided within a browser. Your app will be unable to use device specific technologies (such as the camara) or harness the devices native user experience.

Web apps give you the opportunity to offer mobile users their own tailored experience. However, as this is essentially a separate implementation from the standard web site it will be more costly to implement than the adaptive and responsive design options.

Native app

The app. A bite sized piece of software that enables you to define the specific content and functionality for the user in their context.

A wholly different experience from the website, an app is useful for offering users a specific service or function. With the native app you can take advantage of the vast array technology buried in the mobile device; the compass, gyroscope, storage (offline and cloud), Near Field Communications (NFC), and the camera.

Native apps offer the user the slickest experience on a mobile device made possible by allowing you access to the native UX controls. However, development time of a native app is likely to be greatest of all of your mobile options. Also, each native environment (iOS, Android, Windows, RIM) requires its own development; native apps are not cross platform.

These two factors combine to make this the most costly option in terms of both time and budget.

What’s right for me?

When deciding upon your mobile strategy there are a few things to consider:

Do you need an app?

Typically an app (either web or native) is best suited to perform a specific function. It needs to help a user complete specific tasks. If you are simply looking to represent your cooperate site then an app is not for you. However, customer services, ecommerce and online tools are all better suited to apps on a mobile device.

You need an app, but who is it for?

If you do need an app then it’s time to do some research. What devices do your target demographics use? Does this audience use app stores?

There are clear general trends emerging. Different demographic tend towards different devices. Also, users of different devices use different app store / marketplace behavior. For example while iPhone users are serial app purchasers, Android users rarely venture into the marketplace.

If you have a spread of devices in your target audience, then you need to consider if a native app is the right approach. While it will provide the best user experience, it will also be costly to develop separate apps for each native environment. And, of course, your non iPhone users may never download it anyway.

A web based application (web app) is worth considering in this case. While the user experience may not be as good as a native app, it will be universally available on all devices through the web browser. A single development project makes this approach much more cost effective.

You don’t need an app. Are you responsive or adaptive?

If you wish your users to have the best possible experience of your website on their mobile device, then a responsive or adaptive design is the answer. But which one?

Developing a fully responsive website can be expensive. It may require a full rebuild of your website. You should consider this approach if you are looking to optimise your website for all possible devices and screen sizes. Responsive is also a great way to future proof your website for devices that emerge over the coming years.

On the other hand, if you are targeting a set of specific devices or screen sizes (i.e. iPhone 3G / 4, HTC Desire, 12” Tablet, 9” Tablet) then it is relatively simple to apply specific styles for these cases without the need for a full site rebuild.

When considering your mobile options it is important to understand your audience, their context (how, where, and when do they access your content or service), and what you want to achieve. Everybody’s initial thought is that they want an iPhone app, but this might not be the right solution for you.

Need some help?

Deciding on the best approach can be challenging. We therefore recommend that you speak to an expert before making a final decision about which approach is best for you.

For more information about innovations in the mobile space we recommend reading the blog of emerging technology expert Rob Borley

If you recognise that the mobile web is important and you need help deciding on a strategy, then book a mobile consultancy clinic.

Book a consultancy clinic or contact Rob about a more in-depth review.