This isn’t a rant about the proliferation of mobile devices and how they are going to do everything except change your cat’s litter box in the future. It’s simply about improving your design chops.
I’ve decided that new feature work should start with a design for a mobile device first. We’ve been working on mobile stuff for a while now and I’ve realized there is power in the constraints.
- You have an easy excuse to cut all those “extra requirements” & the “wouldn’t it be easy/cool if features”… screen size.
- You focus on what’s core to the experience in the content column… face it, most of your users aren’t going to read all the crap you put in the sidebar of your sites. They’ve been trained that’s where ads live.
- It makes you think twice as hard about any imagery on the page. The buttons have to be obvious so the user knows what they are going to get and you don’t have room to explain it with text.
- Even with wifi and 3g you don’t take page size and bandwidth for granted. Even with wifi the browsers on these devices aren’t as fast as their desktop, native javascript running, counterparts. Minimalistic FTW!
- You’ll be done faster and able to communicate the core experience more quickly to others to get feedback about what’s really important.
- If you give someone a HUGE blank canvas they freeze with the thought of everything they could do with the space. Give them a post it note and they can focus on one part at a time.