I’m currently working with a group of mobile operators to figure out what & how to expose an existing web application for their subscribers. The process has made me challenge my previous beliefs about streamlining the existing asset for mobile consumption. The bean counters love that approach.

My thoughts are to start thinking about mobile apps from the user’s point of view. I’d venture that we need to be clear about
- who is the target customer first? male/female?
- what phones do they carry? Do they heavily text or browse?
- do they spend on data plans?
- are price plans affordable and what’s the penetration rate & adoption rate?
- how do they perceive the mobile? Must-have Appliance or a Communication tool?
- what types of info-services are valued by the user?

For us, the users love the convenience of being able to retrieve all their travel info & services at a single click.

The North American market offers a relatively homogeneous market and makes it simpler to deploy mobile apps. But in Asia & Middle East, the range in user sophistication, ability to afford, and user mindset; for each market differs greatly between each and within each. So it’s highly challenging & EXPENSIVE to develop all the various options to play in the region.

In short, I think infoservice relevance & accessibility are key. How we design and deploy would seem to depend somewhat on the OS?

Still learning………

Everything else is spot on, great article.

Correction in the iPhone-style link:

(link)

Good topic - some good points.

Just to share some perspective, Earthcomber just won the Mobile Rules! 2008, and Nokia judged a J2ME version in that competition. We use the wrfl table and logs to see what hits the site daily, and to direct people to downloads or moibile web, usually both with one recommended depending on the device/network.
Even though we have app builds for a huge variety, the mobile web version provides by far the largest daily percentage of our traffic.
Depending on the device, we have an ultra stripped-down green stripe mobile web version, or an iPhone-styled one that does in fact mimic the iPhone deck. On that version - which by the way is the default style you get going to Earthcomber through “Local” on Palm’s mobile deck - actually employs more graphics, yet is better recieved by mobile users. Why? Text is minimal load time, but minimalist icons help glancing, make assessing the small screen’s results easier than reading a lot of text, even if it is just nav.

It’s really not a battle between web sites or text versions of web sites.

Mobile consumer-facing apps should NOT equate to a miniturization of the desktop web. The experience is NOT simply taking the Internet out for a walk. Mobile apps should do things that are useful to the circumstances of being mobile. For us, that is telling you all about what’s relevent to you in your physical surroundings. And I’m not advocating for bleeding edge devices. Rather, requiring people using tiny keypads to do a ton of text entry, deal with drop-down menus, etc., is ignoring the limitations of even the latest devices. To check the time, you glance at a watch. You don’t turn knobs and adjust tiny settings - just when it’s new.

With mobile waps or mobile apps, it’s best when it’s happening AMAP on the 5 way nav button.

Judge for yourselves. Here are three looks:
1. plain, stripped-down: mobile.earthcomber.com (If you’re using a desktop/notebook, use (link) )
2. Palm version (WM & PalmOS): same as above, but then edit the tail of the url, replacing “auto” with “palm”
(If you’re using a desktop/notebook, use (If you’re using a desktop/notebook, use (link) )
3. iPhone style: same as above, but replace “auto” at end of the URL with “iphone” (LOWER CASE!) (to fake it on big browsers, here’s a click (link) )

Go to the home button, change to your location (use Internet Connection if you’re on a lan or wifi) then see how much info you can get sliding through the categories and just clicking.

Do small graphic queues help you interpret and decide things faster?

Not perfect, but our approach is to treat it as a gadget UI - not a websurfing experience.

Design for mobile as its own thing, I believe, is the most crucial factor for opening up the data side in the US and free us all from spoon-fed carrier-dictated apps.

– Jim

rn"…what makes a good mobile application truly great? There are lots of examples out there

Having to scroll past navigation to get to the real meat of a web page is the bane of any mobile user’s existence.

Amen. Could you put this in 150 point type so no one will miss it?

“track your users and understand what/how they are interacting with your mobile content/application”

We are on the cusp of one of the greatest ages in ‘handy informational content’ as soon as we can get over the ‘minor issues’ like usability and bandwidth (and throw in a little bit of processing power increases as well).

I’ve said for a long time, if someone visits your mobile site and you dont have any analytics and dont know anything about them or what they did during their visit…..does it count (as a homage to the saying “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear”).

If you run a mobile web site check out Amethon’s Mobile Analytics you might be surprised by how much you can actually find out about your visitors these days.

BTW Think about this - if you cant tell me the top 3 screen resolutions visiting your site, can you consider yourself serious about delivering mobile content?

Cheers,
Dean Collins
(link)

I totally agree with your first point - with minimal screen real estate, mobile sites really need to strip down on features and maximise functionality in creative ways.

I recently launched a mobile site which attempts to do this, called Tiiny.com, which is why I got excited when I read your article.
(link)

Kudos!
Julian