You may Have Seen This?

What It Does

• Encourages web designers to think about the mobile audience;
• Encourages the adoption of good habits for design and usablity;
• Discourages use of technolgies that may be fine on a desktop but not on mobile;
• Encourages designers to remember that mobile device capabilities are limited and that you cannot assume that everyone has a smartphone.

Can't we just code for the iPhone?

• If you want to, of course you can.

Can't we just code for the iPhone?

• If you want to, of course you can.
• But you'll reach more users if you code for less-able devices and add progressive enhancement.

Quick quiz to set the scene

How many of the mobile phones in circulation world-wide in 2007 had a browser installed?

1. 1.7 billion
2. 400 million
3. 1.1 billion

Quick quiz to set the scene

How many of the mobile phones in circulation world-wide in 2007 had a browser installed?

1. 1.7 billion
2. 400 million
3. 1.1 billion

According to estimates by Nokia, 1.7 of the 2.7 billion mobile phones in circulation in 2007 had mobile browsing capabilities.

Putting this in perspective: With a world population of 6.7 billion humans and assuming that each phone with a mobile browser is owned by a different person (which is a bit optimistic, since many people own more than one mobile phone these days), this would mean that 25% of the world's population have access to a mobile phone with a browser.

Quick quiz to set the scene

What is the expected yearly growth rate of active users of mobile browsing until 2010? (the other percentages correspond to expected pure subscriber growth and growth in active users of advertising, ringtones/icons and entertainment/media).

1. 15%
2. 16%
3. 17%
4. 20%
5. 30%

Quick quiz to set the scene

What is the expected yearly growth rate of active users of mobile browsing until 2010? (the other percentages correspond to expected pure subscriber growth and growth in active users of advertising, ringtones/icons and entertainment/media).

Here are the expected annual growth rates for the period 2005-2010 in terms of active users for a number of mobile services:

1. Pure subscriber growth: 15%
   
2. Advertising: 16%
   
3. Ringtones and Icons: 17%
   
4. Entertainment and Media: 20%
   
5. Browsing: 30%

(Source: Nokia)

Quick quiz to set the scene

Estimate the number of pages viewed through Opera Mini in March 2008.

1. More than 1.7 billion
2. More than 2.4 billion
3. More than 2.7 billion
4. More than 3.1 billion

Quick quiz to set the scene

Estimate the number of pages viewed through Opera Mini in March 2008.

1. More than 1.7 billion
2. More than 2.4 billion
3. More than 2.7 billion
4. More than 3.1 billion

In its report "State of the Mobile Web: First Quarter, 2008", Opera reports more than 2.4 billion page views through Opera Mini for March 2008.

Quick quiz to set the scene

Estimate the percentage of visitors to leading US Internet sites that used only their mobile phone to access these sites (i.e. they did not access these sites using their PC at all)?

1. 1%
2. 7%
3. 13%
4. 19%

Quick quiz to set the scene

Estimate the percentage of visitors to leading US Internet sites that used only their mobile phone to access these sites (i.e. they did not access these sites using their PC at all)?

1. 1%
2. 7%
3. 13%
4. 19%

In a report, the audience measurement company Nielsen (known for their TV "Nielsen ratings") reports that for many "leading Internet sites", an average of 13% of users access the site only from their mobile device (data appears to be for the US for Q4 2007).

Quick quiz to set the scene

Can you guess in which of the following countries there are four times more people using the Web from a mobile phone than people accessing the Web from a PC?

1. India
2. Finland
3. USA
4. Japan

Quick quiz to set the scene

Can you guess in which of the following countries there are four times more people using the Web from a mobile phone than people accessing the Web from a PC?

1. India
2. Finland
3. USA
4. Japan

In India, "the number of people using their mobile handsets to access the web is now over four times those using a PC".

Source: Net user base shrinks as Indians go mobile, India Times.

Research

Research conducted by the Pew Foundation in 2009 showed that:

• In 2007, 14% of American adults accessed the internet on a handheld on a typical day and 32% had ever used the internet on their handheld.
• In 2009, 23% accessed the internet on a handheld on a typical day and 38% had ever used the internet on their handheld.

Research

Mobile advertising company admob's traffic is a useful indicator of the global increase in mobile Web browsing with figures from 2009 showing a persistent upward trend in many territories.

Increase in Internet Traffic Reported by admob June 09

Research

It's also worth noting some of the drivers for this growth.

The principal one has been the introduction of smartphones, notably Apple's iPhone. In November 2008, smartphones accounted for roughly 20% of all mobile Web browsing according to research reported by Mobile Marketer.

The other driver has been social networking and microblogging as shown by research carried out by CSS Insight.

Research

A way to get an impression of how many people already use mobile Web access today is to have a look at this Google maps mashup site - it shows in real-time a subset of mobile site accesses all over the world, and gives information on the mobile phone that is used. The data comes from a mobile advertising provider (AdMob), and includes only accesses to sites that show an ad served by their service, which makes the demo even more remarkable - most of the time, the tool shows between 1000 and 2000 accesses per second, many of them in developing countries.

See http://www.admob.com/s/home/live.

Challenges

Dom to talk about...

• Screen Size
• Input
• Bandwidth, Latency & Cost
• User Goals
• Device Limitations

Challenge: Screen Size

Resolution…

• Typical computer screen resolution: 1024x768
• Feature phone: 200x200: 20x smaller
• Smart phone: 320x480: 5x smaller
• Coming: phones at 800x600

Challenge: Screen Size

…and more

• much smaller physical size (30 to 90 times smaller)
• more often vertically oriented
• virtual keyboards take a lot of space

Challenge: Input

• typing text often slow and difficult
• no mouse - sometimes no pointing device at all
• difficult to relate fields with labels

Challenge: Network

• limited bandwidth
• high latency
• cost

Challenge: User Goals

• more limited attention span
• goal-directed
• possibly on the move

Challenge: Device Limitations

From the most common to the rarest…

• color support
• style sheet support
• cookie support
• scripting support
• plug-ins (e.g. Flash) support

Challenge: Device Limitations

…also

• CPU usage drains battery
• limited memory and storage
• software updates more difficult