Posts Tagged ‘mobile’

Emerging iPad Best Practices: App Navigation

Monday, August 9th, 2010

In May, we conducted our first series of usability research sessions with the iPad. The research spanned 5 days for a total of 25 participants, and very quickly we saw certain navigation patterns emerge. Participants consistently struggled with certain apps, while other apps were much easier to use and navigate.

This post will outline a few of the best practices that we have synthesized from our early research. AnswerLab has also published a full report that tackles the question: How can content owners and digital marketers successfully create a digital content strategy across mobile platforms? See our website for more information about iPad user experience research.  

1. Don’t neglect information-seeking paradigms

Users have been conditioned by years of web-browsing to expect certain navigation elements. For example: Participants in our test were frustrated when they could not find a way to go Back or return to Home.

Confused, some of these participants used the iPad’s own Home button, thereby inadvertently exiting the app completely. This disrupted the flow  and took the users out of the immersive experience of the app, making them less likely to return again.

Users struggled to find their way back to the app home screen in Pinball HD for iPad.

Many participants also felt disappointed to learn they could not search content in the New York Times Editor’s Choice or NPR apps. They said that the inability to search diminished the utility of the app to the point that they would use the website instead of the app going forward.

The takeaway? Provide a simple, discoverable way to go Back or get to the app’s Home screen easily. And if your app contains a lot of content, make sure your users have their preferred method of wading through – search.

2. Navigation elements need to be easily discoverable

In addition to mimicking the basic website paradigm, the navigation elements in your app need to be easily discoverable. Despite the fact that some of the applications we tested had Back or Home buttons, some participants were not able to find them.

In the USA Today app, none of the participants realized that they needed to tap the USA Today logo to navigate to different news sections. Building a great app with rich content needs to be accompanied by a sound navigational structure that allows users to access the breadth and depth of your app without getting confused or frustrated.

Users failed to discover that tapping the USA Today logo would reveal navigation by section.

Other applications that we tested – like ESPN’s Score Center XL, Epicurious, and Wikipanion – had navigation elements that were only obvious when the iPad was in landscape mode. Participants that were already in landscape mode noticed these elements, but those that were using the iPad in portrait mode did not discover that they could turn the iPad 90° to uncover these features.

In landscape mode within the Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List app, users would have been able to sort by recipe categories and favorite recipes.

To ensure that your users discover all of your navigation elements – and don’t get lost in your app – make the most basic elements obvious and provide visual cues for elements that are more advanced or hidden.

3. Swipes are more fun than clicks

The touchscreen tablet platform opens the door to novel ways of interacting with content. Leverage touch gestures like swipes and flicks where appropriate, and where users most expect them. For example, users expect to be able to pinch or spread to zoom content – a convention learned from touchscreen mobile phones – and most participants in our testing understood and were delighted by the action of swiping to the next page in apps like the New York Times Editor’s Choice or Time Magazine.

Apple’s iBook application lets users swipe to turn the page in iBooks.

Again, ensure these sometimes unexpected ways of interacting with your content are discoverable by providing indications or visual cues to your users.

4. Keep an eye out for emerging standards

The iPad has only been available for a few months, so the platform is new and rapidly evolving. As more users adopt the iPad or other touchscreen tablet devices, standards for navigation and interaction will emerge that have yet to be established. Users will become more familiar with these standard interactions over time, but certain functionality may take a while to catch on or, certainly, to become ubiquitous.

In the meantime, make sure your app is simple to use. If you are pushing the envelope to institute your own set of standards, make sure they are discoverable and intuitive. Most importantly, test them amongst your users. Keep an eye out as standards emerge and be prepared to incorporate new best practices as they are defined.

Our latest report will help content owners and digital marketers create a winning digital content strategy across mobile platforms. Go here for more information about the iPad user experience research.

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Early Days of Optimizing for the iPad

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Suzuki recently celebrated 50 years of international racing. As part of the celebration, they designed a new website optimized for the iPad.

http://www.suzuki50years.com/

At AnswerLab, we’ve heard from a number of our clients that they’d like to understand users’ expectations across platforms to help inform their design strategy. Should we design mobile apps or mobile optimized websites? Which mobile platform should we design for? What do users expect when they interact with our content on the iPad?

We conduct a ton of mobile user experience research at AnswerLab and now that the iPad has entered the picture, interest is gaining momentum. When I read about Suzuki’s latest creation, I immediately grabbed the AnswerLab shared iPad and brought up the site.

My first impression… It looks fantastic on the iPad.

Suzuki iPad Website

The designers obviously put energy into creating a site that fits well on the iPad’s screen. And Suzuki fully embraced the iPad/iPhone touch interface, allowing one to traverse the site via a simple swipe to change pages. As an iPhone owner, I’m used to performing this action in iPhone apps and the extension of this gesture to the web page is gratifying — albeit a bit unfamiliar.

While writing this blog post, I discovered Apple’s list of iPad ready websites and I’m sure there are others. I intend to check many of them out to see how well they’ve embraced the iPad’s unique format.

Whenever there is an iPhone optimized website, I’ll opt for it when browsing on my iPhone. Given that the iPad’s screen is much larger than my iPhone, only time will tell if I will prefer an iPad optimized website or the standard version of a website.

As your company decides which platform to embrace and whether to create an app or a mobile optimized site, consider your target audience and especially what experience you are bringing to the table. Suzuki may not have a huge iPad audience at this time but by creating an iPad optimized site, they are taking a risk and learning what works, and what doesn’t. At AnswerLab, we conduct research for industry-leaders to minimize their risk. When the platform is new and your audience is relatively small, risks like the one Suzuki is taking with this site may be somewhat trivial. However, prototype testing, conducting research, and fully understanding your users needs becomes paramount as the platform matures and users’ expectations become clear.

Recently, AnswerLab conducted testing to understand mobile consumers’ behaviors when purchasing apps and interacting with mobile devices including the iPad. Look for more information based on our findings in the near future.

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The Apple iPad – a revolutionary game-changer

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Apple considers the iPad to be “magical and revolutionary” and it may very well be. From a usability perspective, tablets have found only a few niches. Tablet adoption has floundered for years with a primary problem being an existing operating system crammed into the device. Apple again demonstrates its design capabilities not just with the sleek form factor, but with the specialized OS running the device. This is likely to be the game-changer for this tablet. The floating keyboard, and gesture support familiar to all pinch and zoom enthusiasts will adapt to professional as well as entertainment applications. iTunes and the AppStore have revolutionized how enthusiasts obtain enhanced functionality and entertainment, and the iPad gains an immediate user base by running applications in the AppStore. Significant reinvestment is not required.

The dedication to design sets Apple apart, and the tools from the iPod to the iPhone have fundamentally changed the way regular users interact with technology. The iPad is essentially a larger, and more capable iPhone. With more real-estate, and a well known OS this could be the tool for personal computing. In a world where everything gets smaller and faster, the iPad’s large format may provide the perfect platform for user capabilities. We are looking forward to our first iPad studies.

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Finding Success in Simple User Experiences

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

The world has sped up, become more connected and a whole lot busier. As a result,  many consumers care more about ubiquitous access to content and communications than having a perfectly full-featured experience.  Increasingly, consumers will not spend time using complicated products and services. But, let’s be clear: “simplification” does not mean the dumbing down of product and services. “Simplification” can mean improving – when done right, it’s the process of streamlining products to make them user friendly.

Earlier in the summer, Wired Magazine published an article called “The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine.” The piece – which claims that companies will find success in cheap, simple products and services that maximize accessibility, flexibility, and convenience – has been picked up by the likes of The New York Times’ Idea of the Day Blogand TechDirt. The article provides great examples of products that have had fewer features – and lower price tags – than the competition and have subsequently become successful in their markets: the Flip videocamera, the MP3, cloud computing, even the military’s MQ-1 Predator drone. The author – Robert Capps – even explores how “The Good Enough Revolution” extends into emerging services including eLawyering and Kaiser Permanente’s microclinics.

The central argument of the piece – that users’ needs are changing, enabled by technology – makes sense.  In today’s busy world, people are willing to compromise quality – defined differently depending on the product or service – and settle for a simpler, less feature-full product. Of course, Capps argues, it’s not quite that simple: the product or service must bear a lower price point, accomplish a baseline goal, and be convenient, or easily accessible, or highly flexible. This premise is an interesting one – and certainly supported by the author’s examples – as it points to an important common theme: In simplifying their products and services, these companies have also increased usability.

Being easier to use than alternatives has contributed to the success, in one way or another, of all of the products or services that Capps mention in the article. For example: The Flip camera’s genius lies in the simplicity of its interface and of operation. Put plainly, the Flip camera is extremely easy to use.

flip

The extremely basic interface – only a handful of buttons! – the integrated USB, and the plug-and-play software for editing, uploading, and organizing make operating the Flip a no-brainer for the average consumer.

Similarly, the success of the MP3 – despite being an extremely lossy format for audio files – has a usability angle as well, though in this case, it’s more about the software and devices that play MP3s than the file format itself. Sure, portability and accessibility have a lot to do with the rise of the MP3 over the CD, but we would argue that usability – as brought to you by Apple – deserves a share of the credit. iTunes’ and iPod’s plug-and-play model, and simple, intuitive interfaces undoubtedly contributed to Apple’s domination of the portable music market (at just over 70% according to NPD) as well as the meteoric rise of the MP3.

Finally, for the nascent services Capps mentions – both eLawyering and healthcare microclinics – usability is key to future success. Providing basic, document-centric legal services online can only succeed in the mainstream with intuitive, well-designed UIs that eliminate the guesswork for users. For example, eLawyering sites with location-awareness and auto-fill form-fields will simplify the processes and allow users to steer clear of legal jargon they may not understand. Similarly, the microclinic model being deployed by Kaiser not only makes healthcare cheaper to provide – it will also make it easy for patients to receive. Because the facilities are local, patients needn’t drive hours to see a doctor. And because records are digital and facilities are networked, patients needn’t worry about transfer of information from one office or hospital to the next.

Capps has indeed described an interesting trend in what people want from products and services – and, subsequently, what it will take for companies to succeed in this changing environment. Winning in the Good Enough Revolution, though, is not just about trimming features to increase accessibility, flexibility, and convenience – it’s also about improving usability.

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Drive Mobile Adoption by Avoiding Common User Experience Pitfalls

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

AnswerLab’s Fortune 500 clients are devoting an increasing amount of resources to develop both mobile apps and WAP sites. There are 2x as many mobile devices in the world as there are TVs . . . and 4x more mobile devices than PCs. If your company doesn’t currently have a mobile strategy, it will – and very soon. At AnswerLab, we’ve been focused on exploring new research techniques to understand the user experience with prototype and live mobile sites and apps.

In the course of this exploration, we’ve discovered that mobile testing is dramatically different from web-based testing. First, it’s impossible to standardize on one device. In traditional usability testing, you can set up a computer at various screen resolutions and be confident you’ve covered most of the usage situations. In mobile, you need to test on multiple devices. Secondly, mobile devices are . . . well, quite mobile, making it difficult to focus a camera on the screen during testing and recording. We’ve used both remote-controlled cameras and in-room videographers to constantly keep the back-room picture in focus. Thirdly, finding the right participants is critical. When testing a WAP site, you want users who would naturally be typing in a URL on their phones and browsing WAP sites in real life. Unfortunately, most mobile device owners have never done this . . . but think they have. It can be a real shock in the lab if you don’t have an air-tight screening process.

Across our studies, we’ve also discovered patterns of mobile user experience issues. By following a few basic guidelines, designers can ensure their mobile products have higher initial adoption. Below is a series of tips to help mobile marketers avoid common pitfalls.

Mobile Tip 1: Users’ expectations for mobile web browsing are heavily influenced by computer-based browsing. Don’t create new conventions. Across our mobile studies, we’ve found that users approach navigation with a mindset built on years of computer-based browsing of the internet. If you’re developing a new WAP site, ensure your navigation options operate much like a standard website. We’ve seen that new conventions typically fail with users in the lab.

Mobile Tip 2: For login with sensitive data, ensure that sessions time out and that username/password aren’t remembered by default. Consumers who use their mobile devices to access protected information such as bank accounts, credit card accounts, or purchasing preferences worry about unauthorized access of their information if they were to lose their phone or have it stolen. They want assurances their information will be secure.

Mobile Tip 3: Provide visual affordance for ‘next step’ links beneath the fold to ensure discoverability. Just like standard websites, WAP sites suffer from discoverability issues with links beneath the fold of the page. This is even more challenging for mobile designers because screen real estate is so limited. Because scrolling is more difficult on mobile devices and often not as natural for users, it’s critical that WAP sites provide visual cues to navigational next step links that fall lower on the page.

Mobile Tip 4: For touch-screens, avoid densely-packed clickable elements that could result in unintentional selection by users – and ensure links are large enough to select without requiring the zoom function. Mobile user interfaces are only as good as the devices that display them. Unfortunately, the much of the mobile hardware available to consumers does not enhance navigation of mobile sites and apps. Touch screens are headed in the right direction, but in our studies, users conduct many miss-clicks due to spacing and sizing issues associated with navigational elements. Giving careful design consideration to clickability will ensure users have a more successful experience with your product.

Mobile Tip 5: Use icons sparingly; stick to universal symbols and always test thoroughly before launch. Icons are challenging even in the non-mobile world of design. On mobile devices, where every page element plays a vital role in the user experience, icons must be done right. In our experience, the context of an icon can often convey unintended meaning, leading to navigation confusion – and even worse, misunderstanding about the very purpose of a site.

Mobile Tip 6: Ensure site search offers next steps or alternatives, particularly when no results are found. This tip applies to non-mobile sites as well. However, in our testing we’ve found that designers often forget this critical best practice. Because mobile web interactions are so new, users assume something is broken when search produces no results.

Mobile Tip 7: Make a practice of pre-launch usability testing on multiple devices – at a minimum on a touch-screen device vs. non. To get a true picture of how your WAP prototype will perform, it’s critical to conduct usability testing across a variety of devices – from Blackberry to iPhone, from touch screen to clamshell – each interface poses a series of user experience challenges. What works on one device, might break on another. Clients, who are serious about mobile web design, should have a comprehensive library of devices for both user testing and QA. It’s not easy, but it’s imperative to developing a good user experience.

Mobile Tip 8: Follow convention; company logo in upper left-hand corner should always return to ‘home’. Any ‘back’ links or buttons should always go in the upper left-hand corner of the screen as well. These rules apply to both WAP sites and apps. One app we studied included a link for ‘more’ information in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Users mistakenly clicked it when attempting to go ‘back’ and were baffled by the next page. But, more importantly, when they wanted additional information they looked to the lower-right, where a typical ‘continue’ button would be, and found nothing. This design broke two major conventions for navigating and failed to promote content consumption within the app.

Mobile Tip 9: Real estate is limited, but including a clickable breadcrumb is a good investment. Users frequently get lost when navigating mobile sites. Small screens prevent the usage of bold, redundant navigation that is so predominant on the web. In our testing, we’ve seen that clickable breadcrumbs go a long way in promoting comfort with mobile navigation.

Mobile Tip 10: Ensure all external links lead to mobile-friendly websites. If you’ve ever navigated a mobile site, clicked a seemingly helpful link, and landed in “non-WAP land”, you know just how jarring and frustrating the experience can be. In our labs, we find that such experiences can even reflect poorly on the brand impression of the original site. Avoid linking to sites that don’t offer the same mobile-friendly experience you do.

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