1. The document discusses different types of mobile applications, including those based on media type (SMS, mobile websites, widgets, native apps, games) and application context (utility, locale, informative, productivity, immersive). 2. It provides pros and cons for each type of mobile application based on media type, covering aspects like ease of creation, user experience, and device support. 3. The document also characterizes different application contexts, such as utility apps providing at-a-glance information with sparse layouts, and immersive apps filling screens without distractions.

1. INTERFACE DESIGN
FOR
MOBILE DEVICES
Courtesy:
1. Mobile Design and Development, Brian Fling, O’Reilly Publications
2. Ivano Malavolta, Assistant Professor @ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

2. Topics covered :
1. Brief History of Mobile (Chapter - 1)
2. Mobility Ecosystem (Chapter - 2)
3. Types of Mobile Applications (Chapter - 6)
4. Mobile Information Architecture (Chapter - 7)
5. Mobile Design (Chapter - 8 )
6. Mobile 2.0 (Chapter -10 )

3. 3. Types of Mobile Applications
Based on Media Type
1. SMS Applications
2. Mobile Websites
3. Mobile Web Widgets
4. Mobile Web Application
5. Native Applications
6. Games
Based on Application Context
1. Utility Context
2. Locale Context
3. Informative Context
4. Productivity Context
5. Immersive Full Screen Context

4. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Media Type
1. SMS Applications
○ Pros
i. They work on any mobile device nearly instantaneously.
ii. They’re useful for sending timely alerts to the user.
iii. They can be incorporated into any web or mobile application.
iv. They can be simple to set up and manage.
○ Cons
i. They’re limited to 160 characters.
ii. They provide a limited text-based experience.
iii. They can be very expensive.

5. 3. Types of Mobile Applications- Media Type
2. Mobile Websites
○ Pros
■ They are easy to create, maintain, and publish.
■ They can use all the same tools and techniques you might
already use for desktop sites.
■ Nearly all mobile devices can view mobile websites.
○ Cons
■ They can be difficult to support across multiple devices.
■ They offer users a limited experience.
■ Most mobile websites are simply desktop content
reformatted for mobile devices.
■ They can load pages slowly, due to network latency.

6. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Media Type
3. Mobile Web Widgets
○ Pros
■ They are easy to create, using basic HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript knowledge.
■ They can be simple to deploy across multiple handsets.
■ They offer an improved user experience and a richer design,
tapping into device features and offline use.
○ Cons
■ They typically require a compatible widget platform to be
installed on the device.
■ They cannot run in any mobile web browser.
■ They require learning additional proprietary,
non-web-standard techniques.

7. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Media Type
4. Mobile Web Application
○ Pros
■ They are easy to create, using basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
knowledge.
■ They are simple to deploy across multiple handsets.
■ They offer a better user experience and a rich design, tapping into
device features and offline use.
■ Content is accessible on any mobile web browser.
○ Cons
■ The optimal experience might not be available on all handsets.
■ They can be challenging (but not impossible) to support across
multiple devices.
■ They don’t always support native application features, like offline
mode, location lookup, filesystem access, camera, and so on.

8. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Media Type
5. Native / Platform Applications
○ Pros
■ They offer a best-in-class user experience, offering a rich design and
tapping into device features and offline use.
■ They are relatively simple to develop for a single platform.
■ You can charge for applications.
○ Cons
■ They cannot be easily ported to other mobile platforms.
■ Developing, testing, and supporting multiple device platforms is
incredibly costly.
■ They require certification and distribution from a third party that you
have no control over.
■ They require you to share revenue with the one or more third parties.

9. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Media Type
6. Games
○ Pros
■ They provide a simple and easy way to create an immersive
experience.
■ They can be ported to multiple devices relatively easily.
○ Cons
■ They can be costly to develop as an original game title.
■ They cannot easily be ported to the mobile web.

11. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Context
1. Utility Context
○ to give users at-a-glance information, therefore offering
users a minimal design aesthetic,
○ focusing the design around the content in view, and often
using larger type and a sparse layout.

12. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Context
2. Locale Context
○ As more location information is being published online, and
more devices add GPS to pinpoint the user’s location,
locale is becoming an excellent data point to pivot
information around.
○ For example, I can use location to display the cafés nearest
to my current location.

13. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Context
3. Informative Context
○ the one and only goal is to provide information,
○ Eg. news site, an online directory, a marketing site, or
even a mobile commerce site,
○ key task of the user is to read and understand and it is not
necessary to interact
○ can be used in multimedia contexts such as desktop and
mobile, for information-heavy applications, and for
marketing or promotional applications.

14. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Context
4. Productivity Context
○ is used for content and services that are heavily task-based and meant
to increase the users’ sense of efficiency.
○ Assumption : the users are more committed to accomplishing a
particular goal, like managing content such as messages, contacts, or
media,
○ very structured, presenting information in a defined hierarchy and often
using the folder or group metaphor to define a sense of order to the
user.
○ When designing these types of apps, we need to pay careful
consideration to how the user thinks out the task. People have an
uncanny ability to understand and recall complex hierarchies of tasks

15. 3. Types of Mobile Applications - Context
5. Immersive Full Screen Context
○ These applications are meant to consume the user’s
focus, often doing so by filling the entire screen and
leaving no trace of the device user interface to distract the
user.
○ Again, the majority of mobile engagement occurs when
the user has idle periods of time; the immersive context is
typical in most entertainment applications, one of the
most popular mobile content areas.