Building mobile applications is a different ballgame from building desktop applications. User behavior on mobile devices is very different, and this is most evident in web browsing. There are four primary differences between desktop and mobile web browsing:
1) Environment
Desktop browsing takes place in homes or offices when we are sitting comfortably in a chair. On the other hand, mobile browsing by definition happens when we are mobile: outdoors, waiting in line, etc. Our psychologies are completely different in these two environments. During mobile browsing, we have shorter attention spans, more distractions, less focus, and little patience.
2) Purpose
Desktop browsing often takes an exploratory feel. Mobile browsing is more pointed and often serves one of the following purposes:
• Finding a specific piece of information (like the time of the next train )
• Keeping ourselves synchronized with the world in real time (like stock prices and sports scores)
• Killing a small slice of time in our day by entertaining ourselves
3) Time
Desktop browsing sessions last from tens of minutes to hours and tend to be less restricted. Mobile browsing sessions last from tens of seconds to a few minutes and typically occur under time constraints (like until the next train arrives).
4) Interface
The industry has focused primarily on this difference and hence it is well understood.
It takes less effort to accomplish a task on a desktop with a full keyboard, a mouse and a large screen. The end result is that users complete larger, more complex tasks on the desktop while opportunistically executing smaller, simpler tasks on mobile devices.
Companies often build mobile applications by removing capabilities from desktop applications to make them lightweight enough to fit on mobile phones. Such an approach addresses the limitations of devices but fails to account for differences in browsing behavior itself. In effect, it accommodates only one difference of the four described above.
For mobile browsing to fulfill its potential, content owners, browser providers and device manufacturers will need to focus on the total user experience rather than features. All elements of the ecosystem will need to collaborate coherently to create an experience that addresses a different set of behaviors.
A frequently used sales adage is that when a customer walks into a hardware store asking for a two-inch nail, what he really wants is a two-inch hole. We need to be building and selling mobile holes, not mobile nails.
- Girish Wadhwani
