If users can’t figure out how to use your mobile applications and what’s in it for them, they’re gone. Usability and UX are key factors in keeping users satisfied so understanding, measuring, testing and improving these factors are critical to the success of today’s mobile applications. However, sometimes these concepts can be confusing—not only differentiating them but also defining and understanding them. Philip Lew explores the meanings of usability and UX, discusses how they are related, and then examines their importance for today’s mobile applications. After a brief discussion of how the meanings of usability and user experience depend on the context of your product, Phil defines measurements of usability and user experience that you can use right away to quantify these subjective attributes. He crystallizes abstract definitions into concepts that can be measured, with metrics to evaluate and improve your product, and provide numerous examples to demonstrate the concepts on how to improve your mobile app.
26. Mobile Usability
Different Platforms Need Different Design
• Horizontal swiping now universal
– Include a visible cue when people can swipe
– Avoid swipe ambiguity: don't use the same swipe gesture to
mean different things on different areas of the same screen or
within same app.
– Use the same meanings for mobile phones and tablets
– Mobile-device (iPad) users typically expect to horizontally swipe
while desktop websites avoid horizontal scrolling
• Mobile sites should perform better than full sites when
used on a mobile device.
• Mobile apps should integrate with the desktop
version
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56. Errors - Prevention
• Prevention is the first
thing we want to do!
– Context sensitive
help
– What other ways
can we prevent
errors?
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Nice long search bar
84. Making Assumptions
• Sense the platform and
switch to a ‘mobile site’
to provide mobile users
with more efficient web
experience.
• Don’t make too many
assumptions regarding
the users’ expectations.
• For full United.com site,
we need to scroll to the
bottom to find the link.
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85. Give a Choice to Avoid Making
the Wrong Assumption
• Managing user expectations
of how the application should
behave needs to be thought
out carefully.
• Context of the user and their
expectations is key.
• LinkedIn appears to be one
step ahead and gives you a
choice when accessing their
site; an optimized mobile
experience via an mobile-app,
or just their ordinary website.
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86. Web-Mobile Integration
• Overall integration of web-apps needs to be thought out
carefully with mobile scenarios in mind.
• Friend wanted to show me a product at www.costco.com.
• He sent me a link from his iPhone. I was at my desktop,
and opened the link and got the mobile version.
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88. Determine the Needs at Hand
• What need is the mobile application
attempting to mobilize?
• How can the workflow be designed more
efficiently to accomplish the task?
• How can the specific features and
characteristics of a mobile device improve
and complement the experience in contrast
to the normal web-based application or
other mobile platforms?
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89. Determine the Needs at Hand
• Implement top scenarios
users want and
optimizing efficiency for
those scenarios ONLY.
– Filling an order was a
scenario optimized
just for mobile.
– Only 4 data items to fill
in, 2 being scroll
buttons, biggest button
indicates precisely the
task purpose.
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