CNET recently ran an editorial on how the mobile internet has changed and what will happen. Their most interesting conclusion(IMHO) was that users want to access the same web sites they have on the PC, and want to get the same navigation experience.
This reminded me of a discussion I had with a former IT manager of Generali(an austrian insurance). We talked about web browsers for PDA’s, and I demoed him the “native design display” capabilities of the then-revolutionary Web Pro 3.5 on a Palm Tungsten T3. His reaction was – good work, but useless. No one wants to scroll his hide off…
And this has become a “mantra” for me ever since. An ultramobile device can never run real PC apps – the screen is to small physically. And whats true for a program like word is true for a complicated web site too. You could compress side bars tinily(teeny tiny fonts), or force excessive scrolling. Neither of the two is a useful choice…
However, abstracting content into a smaller template on a handheld leads to better usage experience – and this is the only smart choice imho…
P.s. Eugenia Loli-Queru seems to think the same…
Related posts:
Content, RSS
Twitter