Mobile, Tablet or Desktop? Consider your audience device when creating content.

January 24th, 2012 by Mark Lewis

Imagine eating a prime rib dinner while driving your car. Imagine eating just an apple while seated at Peter Luger Steak House. Imagine eating soup from a plate. In these scenarios, the fare is not appropriately served for the situation.

Traditionally, when constructing an online presence, content is written and organized for a target audience. With the rise of mobile devices and tablets, the online presence must take into account how the content is being accessed by the end user. Would your content typically be browsed leisurely on the couch? Are you supplying information for people who would be in transit? Are you providing a compelling, immersive experience engaging the user for hours?

Ten years ago, the concern when building a site was browser support of the HTML, CSS and plugin installation for rich media such as Flash. Browser rendering, at least modern browsers, is mostly consistent across browsers and operating systems. Browsers now natively handle many file formats such as PDFs. Rich media has defaulted to Flash which has a large desktop penetration and easy installation and upgrade process. Today, however, not everyone is on a desktop or laptop when browsing the web. Mobile and tablet devices are quickly growing in numbers. The ergonomics of using these devices, not to mention support for media such as Flash, must be taken into account when developing your website, web application, email campaigns or any other online project.

Keep in mind the strengths of tablets and mobile devices:

Mobile devices are used constantly be people in transit (hence the term “mobile”).
Tablets are typically used in a leisure setting for media consumption. The device is becoming the main platform for books, video, music, etc.
The devices are meant for convenience.

There are some issues with these devices:

Typing is usually more difficult
Screen size is often small.
Touch interaction on the screen often experiences “fat finger syndrome” where the clicked link was not the intended one.
When not connected to wifi, data rates are slower.
Flash is not supported by iOS (iPhone, iPad, iTouch).
Rollovers are not possible on touchscreens.

If resources allow, alternate versions of your website or web application can be constructed to specifically support various devices. Wurfl is a great library when coding to detect the client device and get features of that device.

Email client detection is not possible in HTML email campaigns. To optimize email for a mobile audience, design your mobile email so it works across all mobile devices.

So taking into account the rise of mobile and tablet devices, here are some best practices:

Unless the multimedia experience is the main purpose of your project, refrain from it for better device support.
If the main purpose is multimedia, consider building in HTML5. This will save you from having to code for various platforms (iOS, Android, Flash, etc).
Use video in an HTML5 embed which will allow you to specify various formats supported by various devices.
If your content or application is meant for people on the go, keep everything as simple and easy as possible. Have a simple interface with few images with easy navigation. Make only pertinent content and functions available.
Keep typing to a minimum for tablets and mobile. Swiping is the easiest gesture.
Large text and buttons are helpful for readability and clicking interaction.
Do not use rollovers to trigger important parts of the interface like navigational menus.

For further reading:

Tags: Android, best practices, desktop, Flash, html5, iPad, iphone, Mobile, tablet

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