The Mobile Web: Consider the User
Thirty-eight percent of American mobile phone users — 120 million people — access the web via their mobile device; fewer than 30 million are iPhones or Android phones. (Mobile Access 2010 Pew Internet and American Life Project). This percentage increases dramatically among the under-served 30% of the population without reliable non-mobile Internet access (Pew). The growth of the mobile web will continue to be very rapid in the coming years — and will have substantially more reach than iPhone or Android applications. According to a research report by Morgan Stanley, mobile web usage will exceed all other web usage by 2015.
This leads to a common misconception: that your organization must immediately “mobilize” its website, by creating a mobile friendly version of your existing website.
This approach misses two key facts: one, users are already using your website on their phones, and two, mobile web users have different needs than desktop users.
In reality, when planning a mobile web strategy, you should consider the following factors:
I. Web surfing behavior on a mobile phone differs from the desktop
Traditional web pages are a place where users seamlessly browse a multitude of links in a discovery process. Not so with the mobile web. Mobile web usage is relevant and successful when it can deliver the exact information that the mobile user needs or wants. Mobile browsers, even on smart phones, are not conducive to searching, browsing, or exploration. Sending someone to the mobile version of the front page of your website will likely not be useful to the viewer — or your organization.
Mobile web pages are effective when they deliver precisely targeted information. For example, simple or pre-populated forms, maps and location information, simple advocacy tools such as petitions, or simple instructions such as consumer or medical information. This is the type of content that should be converted into mobile optimized web pages and can be very effective for you and your constituents.
II. Mobile visitors have limited non-standard browsers with which to get information
Mobile phones come in all shapes and sizes. Even smart phones vary significantly. (If you have a Blackberry, try asking an iPhone user if your phone is “smart” and prepare to be teased.)
Most phones have little screens (see chart below) and render graphics poorly. Additionally, there are dozens of browsers and formats among the hundreds of makes and models. This requires building mobile web sites to the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator is text and images and not much of either. In some cases, it may make sense to create separate optimized mobile sites for iPhone, Android, and one for all others. This will depend on the particular use case and the audience. Media and content rich mobile sites may serve to frustrate rather than serve your audience.
III. How will I get people to my mobile site?
The technical and behavior differences between mobile phone web users and computer web users noted above impacts the ways in which your potential audience will discover the mobile site. Users rarely enter a URL onto their phones; instead, they follow links. Mobile sites are most commonly accessed via sent links (primarily text messages, Twitter, Facebook and email) and secondarily, through mobile search.
Your organization should have a strategy to engage its potential mobile audience at least via those primary channels. A successful mobile web program typically requires a call to action beginning with a text message (or Tweet or email) which conveys the preliminary information and then drives people via link to the mobile web page which has been optimized as discussed above.
The mobile web is big today and will be huge tomorrow. In order to win at the mobile web, you need to understand how it is being used by your audience and optimize your content for those purposes.
By Jed Alpert, cross-posted on the NTEN blog

