Native vs. Mobile Web, 1 year later

Remember how a year ago everyone was asking “Native or Mobile Web Apps*”? At the time, the pros/cons list looked kind of like this:

Native App: allows device specific strengths (GPS, camera, notifications, etc.) but you have to build a separate app for each device & deal with app store overhead

Mobile Web App: can build one thing that will work across many platforms and you don’t have to deal with app stores, but you lose some device-specific capabilities and there was no clear winner w/ dev frameworks

Since then, the debate has shifted. It’s now generally accepted that when it comes to building apps, native wins.

Here’s what’s changed:

• The top mobile players have emerged: as people retire their feature phones, they’re upgrading to iPhone, Android, and Windows smartphones. This helps app developers to make safe bets on where to invest their resources, rather than anxiously trying to guess what’s coming next.
• The “big 3” (Apple, Google, Microsoft) are training users to choose native apps. They all have a clear incentive to do so: when a user downloads an app, guess who makes a cut of the profits?
• Native apps are widely recognized by users as creating a better user experience:

1. UI elements fit with user’s expectations for the device (I’ve heard many Android users complain about Android apps that look like they were designed for iPhone. Non-tailored experience in mobile web are just as off-putting)

2. They feel “faster”: native allows you to minimize delays caused by having to download images/content

3. When users lose internet connection, they can continue with their native app experience in many cases

• I also loved this point from the good folks at N/Ng:

Finally, let’s consider the differences between Nielsen’s Law for Internet bandwidth and Moore’s Law for computer power. Over the next decade, Internet bandwidth will likely become 57 times faster, while computers will become 100 times more powerful…

In other words, the relative advantage of running native code instead of downloading stuff over the Internet will be twice as big in 10 years. One more point in favor of mobile apps.

No one knows what the next 12 months will bring. But for the here and now, “native” wins.

*Throughout this article I am referring to apps, not mobile-optimized websites. It always makes sense to mobile-optimize your website!

Official Android Design Guidelines

At long last– real design guidelines! Covers useful topics such as typography, metrics/grids, design patterns, and pre-built components. 

The problem with mobile app "Pretenders"

So true:

This is a great explanation of why mobile web apps shouldn’t simply try to emulate a native app:

Users of pretender apps get an experience that falls squarely in the uncanny valley — it looks like a native app, but something isn’t quite right. Perhaps it doesn’t respond as expected or it doesn’t quite follow the conventions of a native app. Often pretender apps have both of these problems and then some. They simply don’t feel “at home”.

Another problem which we’ve heard in usability: non-iPhone users are put-off when they encounter mobile websites that “look too much like an iPhone”. There are interaction problems: should the Android user tap the glossy button or the hard back button to move to the previous page? There are also visual design problems: when a page screams “designed for iPhone,” non-iPhone users feel like they’re being treated as second-class citizens. Not good, considering that many users consider their choice of phone to be a mode of self-expression.

Recommendation: Focus less on “I’ve fooled them all into thinking this is native!” and more on “This is a great user experience.” A few tips:

• Keep it clean & quick to load (consider your use of images, animations, etc.)
• Streamline key workflows: keep in mind that each time the user navigates to another page, they run the risk of encountering slow load times
• Optimize layout & visual elements to be appropriate for a small screen size (look to native apps for best practices about font size, line height, tap area, etc.)
• By default redirect users to the mobile-optimized version of your site, but include a link to the full version of the website

Android Design Guidelines | Mutual Mobile

A set of unofficial Android Design Guidelines from the folks at Mutual Mobile. I found it to be a useful translation of the Android Developer design guidelines into “design speak”.

Useful recommendations include:

• Dimensions for common UI elements (such as tab bar) across devices
• When to customize or go with default UI components
• Things to watch out for when specifying rich visual design
• How to size & export button/icon assets
• Using draw9patch
• … and all sorts of other little hints & tricks for avoiding Android “design disasters”

...More Android Interaction Design Patterns

Another great blog about Android design patterns, including lots of examples.

You may wish to start with the site’s UI Pattern Index.

Android Interaction Design Patterns

Finally, someone has done a proper job of documenting Android design patterns! Patterns include navigation, notifications, personalization, and more. There are also clear explanations of when and how to use them, including examples of actual apps.

Logo design for Frankendeal.

A long-overdue update on my Women2.0 Labs experience: three weeks ago, I teamed up with a group of 3 other entrepreneurs. We rallied around the idea of creating a platform for audio-guided walking tours. Many interviews, surveys, brainstorms, concept tests, mentoring sessions, and nights at HackerDojo later, we find that our idea has changed quite a bit.

Now we’re hard at work tackling a new problem: how to improve the customer experience of waiting in lines. Our goal is to make it so enjoyable to wait in lines that customers actually look forward to it! We’re exploring the possibility of using location-based mini games to entertain users while providing real-world rewards, such as coupons. Project code name: Frankendeal.

There are still a lot of questions that we need to answer, and problems we’ll need to solve. In the spirit of quick-and-dirty user research, we hung out at a local coffee shop last week, observing & engaging with people as they waited in line. We learned a lot about how people deal with lines– what they do, how they feel, how it affects their overall experience. We also got a lot of great feedback on our idea!

This week, we’re developing a very rough prototype that we can get into users’ hands to gauge actual interest and usage. Our first iteration is very simple and focuses on the following game elements that resonated with users:

• short duration
• potential for real-world reward
• game is somewhat challenging, rather than being “mindless”
• tied to location (using the foursquare API)

I’ll keep you posted as lightning strikes and brings Frankendeal to life!

Thanks again to all who have helped out by participating in interviews, surveys, usability, and more. You are truly wonderful.