There’s been a lot of hubbub lately about designing mobile-optimized websites and applications. Based on the latest numbers from TechCrunch suggesting that smartphones will surpass PC shipments in two years, this enthusiasm is justified. With support from many thought leaders including Luke Wroblewski, it has been suggested that organizations should design for mobile first in order to capitalize on the explosive growth.
However, he mentions one point in particular that I think should be the strongest motivating factor in focusing on mobile experiences:
Mobile devices require software development teams to focus on only the most important data and actions in an application. There simply isn’t room in a 320 by 480 pixel screen for extraneous, unnecessary elements. […] So when a team designs mobile first, the end result is an experience focused on the key tasks users want to accomplish without the extraneous detours and general interface debris that litter today’s desktop-accessed Web sites.
I think this point is pretty straightforward. Many of us already know that the constraints of mobile technologies and platforms require us to design for limited scope and functionality. However, it seems that this guiding principle is readily digested only when designing for our beloved little handheld devices. Designing for the desktop often results in feature creep — not necessarily because we should, but because we can.
How can our designs for mobile experiences be used as a framework to design focused, user-centered desktop experiences as well?
“Lowest Common Denominator” Is Not a Dirty Phrase
For lack of a better way to say it, mobile forces us to design for the lowest common denominator. Designing for the lowest common denominator seems to be a dirty idea propagated by the hatred for that really awesome browser called Internet Explorer 6. However, designing for the lowest common denominator of your user base does not suffer the same pitfalls and should not cause similar gag reflexes.
To be clear, when I say “lowest common denominator”, I don’t intend to suggest that we should be designing for computer illiterate grandmas. That is a persona with a unique skill set (or lack thereof). Rather, I’m referring to the goals that our personas need to accomplish. While we should definitely take into account the skills of our user base, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s more important that we understand:
- What goal the user is trying to accomplish.
- What triggered the creation of this goal.
- The tasks required to complete this goal.
Rather than design a mediocre experience that meets all the needs of everybody, we should design an excellent experience that meets the primary needs of the majority.
Just like in real life, we can’t make everybody happy, so let’s focus on helping the people who really matter.
Using Mobile As a Framework
We work so hard to make the most efficient mobile experience possible. But doesn’t it seem wasteful to not apply any of that refinement to the desktop experience? I agree with others who suggest that user goals and task flows may change depending on context, but it seems common practice to throw the baby out with the bath water when designing experiences across different platforms. “Well, we got this really refined mobile experience with optimized user flows. Let’s start everything from scratch for the desktop and tablets.”
Take Facebook.com vs. Facebook for touch-enabled mobile devices. Based on the design of the desktop site, I assume that the main user goals are:
- I want to post personal updates.
- I want to view the latest updates from my network of friends and family.
Similarly, when evaluating touch.facebook.com, it appears it was designed with the same user goals and priorities. I realize this is an apples-to-oranges comparison, since the desktop version most likely informed the design of the mobile version, but it’s an easy example that illustrates the parallels between these experiences.
To reiterate, the architecture could justifiably be different if the context warrants it. But, if it doesn’t, what purpose is there in turning a two-page task flow on a mobile site into five-pages on the desktop site? If we’ve already designed the most logical and efficient architecture for the mobile site, wouldn’t it benefit our users and our business to use that as a framework across all platforms and contexts?
In a time-crunched world where research and design dollars are cinched tight and and squeezed into skinny jeans, I believe we can re-use the fundamental information architecture of the mobile site as a framework for the desktop experience. If we do our homework and verify that the context does not affect the primary user goals, the supporting experience can be the same from an architectural perspective. With that work out of the way, it becomes a matter of applying your IxD and UI chops to adapt the interactions to the varying platforms as necessary.