Summary:
Mobile use will rise, but desktop computers will remain important, forcing companies to design for multiple platforms, requiring continuity in visual design, features, user data, and tone of voice.
via Transmedia Design for 3 Screens — Make That 5: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
In a recent survey of mobile phone consumers, Nielsen reports that a majority of mobile phone purchases are now smartphones. Additionally, they included this nice graphic which charts a resurgence of Apple’s iPhone, which has been gaining market share in recent months in its ongoing competition with Google’s Android platform.
From the article:
Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.
via In US, Smartphones Now Majority of New Cellphone Purchases | Nielsen Wire
This looks worth checking out:
“an awesome HTML5 and CSS3 framework for making responsive, cross-browser websites with beautiful typography”
Most responsive and adaptive HTML/CSS frameworks or boilerplates start with desktop styles and use media queries to serve mobile browsers the right layout. The problem is that most mobiles won’t respond to these media queries because they don’t support it. Also, using a polyfill like Respond.js will not give you any result because they are very limited devices and don’t even support JavaScript.
But Gridless uses a different approach: it uses media queries to serve a progressively-enhanced responsive layout, starting from mobile and building up to desktop sizes.
via Gridless – An awesome boilerplate for responsive, cross-browser websites.
Consider the difficulty of developing mobile apps for all devices …
Many readers may have noted 37Signals’ decision to develop the mobile version of their popular Basecamp project management service as an HTML5 Web App. After having developed an iOS-native app for their Highrise application, they noted the fast rise of Android-based mobile devices. Rather than add an Android developer to their team, they opted to shift strategy. By developing the Basecamp app as a mobile web app, they made the app immediately accessible to a wide away of devices across multiple platforms. Continue reading “Colleges Weigh Costs of Native Mobile Apps versus Web Apps”
Consider the possibilities of the Light Field Camera:
Lytro, the company behind this technology, has raised $50 million in investment to get this camera into production. (Read more at AllThingsD.)
Will it be a hit?
A picture is worth a thousand words. Check out the photo above — click to refocus — and see what you think.
Then see more photos in their online gallery.
And see the explanation of their technology and a preview of key features of the upcoming light field camera.
for the first time ever, daily time spent in mobile apps surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption. This stat is even more remarkable if you consider that it took less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage, driven primarily by the popularity of iOS and Android platforms.
via Mobile Apps Put the Web in Their Rear-view Mirror — June 20, 2011 — Flurry.com
Want to check your monthly data usage on your AT&T iPhone?
After some hunting and searching, I discovered that AT&T has a free mobile app in the iTunes store for this:
From Gartner’s 2010 report:
By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide. According to Gartner’s PC installed base forecast, the total number of PCs in use will reach 1.78 billion units in 2013. By 2013, the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will exceed 1.82 billion units and will be greater than the installed base for PCs thereafter.
Mobile Web users are typically prepared to make fewer clicks on a website than users accessing sites from a PC. Although a growing number of websites and Web-based applications offer support for small-form-factor mobile devices, many still do not. Websites not optimized for the smaller-screen formats will become a market barrier for their owners — much content and many sites will need to be reformatted/rebuilt.
via Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond.
Over the next few weeks we at A Little Code will be experimenting with best ways to optimize sites for multiple devices. Here are a few initial thoughts.
Initially, we’ve found that for a site with a number of interactive elements, such as drop-down navigation, slideshows, javascript overlays, etc., the approach to Responsive Web Design recommended by Ethan Marcotte — adding media queries for mobile devices at the end of things — isn’t up to the task.
Continue reading “Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile Site: Which is better, when?”
Jakob Nielsen has released a new study on iPad usability and interface improvements. From the article:
A year after our first usability study of iPad apps, it’s nice to see that iPad user interfaces have become decidedly less whacky. It’s even better to see good uptake of several of our recommendations from last year, including apps with:
- back buttons,
- broader use of search,
- homepages, and
- direct access to articles by touching headlines on the front page.
Read the results: iPad Usability: Year One (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox).
Data Enhanced 