Our Managing Director Kimber Johnson was recently interviewed by our friends over at City Life Consulting about mobile web site design and mobile application design. You can see the original post on their web site at http://www.citylifeconsulting.com/7-mobile-site-and-application-design-tips or read his answers below:
Why should one decide to create a mobile version of their existing website?
If we are just talking on just a statistical level, mobile is as least as important as your traditional web presence right now and soon will be more important. There are roughly a billion people accessing the Internet right now through mobile devices and there are about 1.2 billion PCs/laptops/tablets in the world. If you look at how rapidly mobile web access is growing each year, it is pretty obvious that a company’s mobile presence cannot be an afterthought any longer. There are over 5 billion accounts with carriers for mobile devices now and everyday devices that are enabled for mobile web access are taking over the mobile market. With smartphone sales growth numbers typically at well over 40% from year-to-year, it’s easy to see that in a short amount of time the mobile web experience will be the dominant format purely in terms of numbers.
What considerations should one make when creating the mobile version of an existing website?
The primary items that I encourage clients to consider with mobile web sites, at least initially, are to keep in mind download times over the 3G/4G networks and how your visitors will be interacting with your site during a mobile experience. Accessing a site via a 3G network is much slower than the cable Internet that most of us enjoy at home or in the office, so you need to build sites that work well in the slower environment, it is similar to how we built web sites in the 18k dial-up modem days. With that being the case, it is wise to consider in what ways a user will want to interact with your business from a mobile site and focus on that. Consider only including the information that is relevant to a mobile experience. This not only keeps your site quick but provides a better user experience by cutting the clutter.
What types of web sites would be considered the ideal site for a mobile version build?
Typically those businesses that are in an industry where potential customers will want to interact with their web site while on the go are ideal candidates for mobile web sites. If your business offers automotive repair, for instance, or if you have a restaurant, you will find customers are regularly finding your web site via mobile devices if you have a decent position on Google and you will want to offer a quality user experience to those customers in order to be able to convert visitors into clients. Key here is to evaluate your business to see if it is the type of business that can leverage a mobile site. Beyond that, those businesses that choose to engage in optimizing for mobile will want to engage in search engine optimization to increase the numbers of visitors they see at their sites. Users searching the web on mobile devices are much less willing to go deep into Google listings and you will lose those opportunities for client acquisition.
So search engine optimization is important for the mobile web too?
Search engine optimization is imperative to businesses looking to grow via the mobile web. With download speeds being lower and the fact that users are often on the move, the opportunity to create a contact really only will happen if businesses are on the first page maybe two of Google’s rankings. There are several things about search engine optimization that are wonderful for business owners; first of all, it is typically very affordable. Second, it works for both mobile and traditional web sites at the same time, so you get a lot of bang for your buck. Beyond that, and most importantly, it regularly has tremendous ROIs. Our SEO clients have seen incredible returns from small investments in search engine optimization. If you really want to get people to your site, I always recommend search engine optimization. A solid mobile web experience is how you convert the visitors on mobile phones into contacts, giving you potential clients.
Are there any types of sites or companies that should not bother going mobile?
There are several clients that I recommend mobile applications to over mobile sites. Typically mobile sites are effective for businesses that are in industries where people search for them on the go, but if you are looking to create regular ongoing contacts with your client base, mobile applications are always better. Mobile apps are easier and quicker to access and are a great way to make it very easy for consumers to interact with your business on a regular basis.
For companies that don’t want to create a mobile version of their existing web site, are there still opportunities for them to take advantage of the growth in the mobile sector?
There are a great number of opportunities to advertise a business in the mobile arena. Typically these see very nice returns on their investment. This is for two reasons, first mobile is new, users are not as used to formats and layout so they ads stand out and get attention much better than with traditional or online advertising. We see very nice click rates with mobile advertising and I think that is part of what is driving the meteoric growth of mobile advertising. The other factor is the careful targeting apps allow. With a little homework, it is easy to find a mobile app that caters to your target market very tightly and advertise right to the people who you want to see your ad. For years I have promoted tightly targeted advertising to maximize the efficiency of ad budgets and mobile is taking that to another level. This is very good news for small businesses that have smaller advertising budgets; they will certainly get a lot more out of those budgets right now.
What mistakes should companies look to avoid when designing a mobile application?
The biggest one I see is that some people try to do too much with their mobile applications. Mobile applications always work best when they are carefully designed around a specific purpose and they make it easy to accomplish that purpose. Users that access media via mobile are likely to read less on mobile devices and have less patience for poor user experiences, therefore it is crucial to make it easy to do what they are there to do and create an environment where they can do that one thing well. Cut the rest out. Don’t try to add in an accounting package just because you think they may want to keep track of that while using your app. They won’t. They have Quick Books or an accountant for that. Focus your app and make it easy to use.
Google very recently introduced Android 4.0, otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich, along with the new phone that will ship with the it, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The improvements that it offers are certainly significant, ambitious and compelling to the marketplace. Here is a quick list of the highlights that are being discussed by Android application developers:
1. Unified UI Framework – The new Android UI is now consistant across device form factors. Android developers can now write for Android devices across the board rather than phones or tablets separately.
2. Android Beam – NFC-enabled Android phones can now use Android Beam to share information about their apps with each other when the phones are in close proximity. Users can now exchange contacts, configure multi-player games, initiate chats, etc. Android Beam can switch over to Bluetooth for large data transfers; and it doesn’t require manual device discovery or pairing. Android application developers are very excited about this feature.
3. Face Unlock – Android 4.0 uses the technology as an optional way to unlock the device. Users can also use PIN entry or pattern tracing to unlock their devices.
4. Calendar API – Simplifies the process of adding calendar related services to apps. It allows apps to add and manage events, alerts, and reminders through a shared database. Very useful for mobile applications for Android phones.
5. Visual Voicemail API – Includes the ability to access incoming messages, voice transcriptions, and audio files from multiple voicemail service providers. The Phone app can be integrated with developer apps.
6. Enterprise Enhancements – Ice Cream Sandwich comes with a new VPN API that makes it easier to create apps that rely on secure connections.
There is certainly a lot to be excited about with Android 4.0. If you are contemplating building a mobile app for Android devices be sure to discuss all that is available with an Android mobile app developer to make sure you don’t miss out on a great opportunity to leverage the power of this exciting new operating system.
If you’re thinking about developing an application for iPhone, Android application or an iPad application, your potential audience is massive and growing at an accelerating rate. Individual smartphone users across the globe will have downloaded 98 billion mobile apps by the end of 2015 according to a recent estimate by Berg Insight. And while this is encouraging news regarding usage, it also points out that it is more important than ever to carefully develop mobile applications that will stand out in the marketplace and stay on your users smartphones.
One of the key attributes and considerations that we tell our clients when discussing mobile application development is that they need to do more than just market a business. While this often seems to be a driver to build mobile applications, it’s far from the only one. You should consider functions such as customer service, a tool to augment your product line or simply providing your customers a mobile application of value that they will utilize regularly. This way your app is something that they will interact with regularly, this isn’t necessarily the case with apps that exist solely to promote. Consider all aspects of your business and goals and then develop an app strategy that actually supports those goals and works inline with them.
The second idea that we always tell clients is that an app should deliver value. Even if it’s free, the app needs to give the user a reason not just to download it but to actually use it. Reasons will vary by business and industry–giving you lots of opportunities to be creative. You know your customer, see that they will get some value from your app. If you do they will appreciate it and use your iPhone or Android application.
Finally, have a plan to get the word out. Just like with your website, a mobile application won’t just magically find an audience. They need to be marketed like any other part of your business. This could be as simple as a sign in a physical retail location, links from an emails or your website, or a mention that you have iPhone, iPad and Android application on your print marketing materials. Remember that apps are hip and new, people want them and it very easy to get people to download them if you let them know that you have an iPhone application, iPad application or Android application available.