UI mobile design – 5 best practices

The short:

1. Limit features
2. Provide text summaries
3. Increase space between touch targets
4. Vertical menus
5. Left align content

The long:
The mobile revolution is here; well actually it’s been here for a couple of years now.  Many organizations have created a mobile site, and some have even ventured into creating a mobile application.

In today’s post, I’m providing you with 5 best practices when designing your mobile UI (User Interface).  If your mobile site is a mess, or you’ve been tasked to design your organizations site, I think you’ll find the following helpful.

1. Limit features – the most important thing in successfully designing for mobile is to limit the number of features to five or less.  Your users are limited to the screen size of their phone and/or tablet, and anything not absolutely critical become clutter.  Remember why your users are using your mobile site and choose features accordingly.
2. Provide text summaries - mobile sites render slower than on your computer and users need a sneak peek into the content they’ll access.  As a user it’s annoying to click on a feature, story title or product link, only for the content not to be what you anticipated it would be.  To help eliminate user frustration, I recommend that whenever possible to provide a brief summary of what content will display after your user takes an action.  Even a short sentence will suffice.
3. Increase space between touch targets - one issue I have with mobile UI’s is with space between touch targets (links, titles, photos, etc.) is not big enough.  Who hasn’t clicked the incorrect link by accident, more than once?  Keep this best practice in mind when you’re deciding to include yet another touch target on your UI.
4. Vertical menus – when creating the navigation for your mobile site, consider using vertical menus instead of horizontal.  We have such little real-estate on our devices and using a horizontal menu structure will require horizontal scrolling or the use of a small font.  I will admit I’ve seen some horizontal menus done well recently, but it requires skillful designing.
5. Left align content - A key to making sure users quickly locate all features on your mobile site is to align content to the far left of the UI.  If you ever access a non-mobile website via your mobile device you’ll quickly understand the importance of this best practice.  As an extension, in the usability world horizontal scrolling is a big no-no; using left alignment will help eliminate horizontal scrolling.

Hopefully you’ve found these rules helpful, what are some rules that help guide your mobile design?

Whose job is it to make sure users have a positive experience?

 The short:
Every project needs an identified resource to represent the users and how they will interact with your technology. 

 The long:
I thought this question was a great topic for my first blog entry, because it’s critical to the success of any project.

I believe that most companies, teams and individuals creating or implementing technology really want to make their product user-friendly.  Who wouldn’t want to make their users happy and more successful?  Take a look at a recent project charter/requirements and there is a great chance you’ll see one of the following statements:

• solution needs to be user-friendly
• users need to have an improved experience over the existing technology
• solution needs to meet the needs of our users/customers

The problem isn’t that we don’t want a positive user experience, but instead project details and other responsibilities get in the way.  Each project team member has a set of responsibilities and priorities they must complete to hold up their end of the project.  If you ask them to also factor in the user experience, they are likely to agree, however it will get prioritized after their other responsibilities.    

In an ideal scenario, your company will have a dedicated user experience team responsible for providing a positive experience for the users. If your company has a team established already that’s great, please work with them early on and always include them in design meetings.    

The problem is that many projects don’t have a dedicated resource/funding for usability.  All projects in this situation must identify someone on the project team to represent the users.   The resource does not have to be solely dedicated to user experience, but they do need to ask the question “How will this impact our users?” before any decision is made in regards to design and functionality.  If the resource does this consistently, soon others will start asking the question and it will slowly become part of the project’s standard practice. 

So now I ask you the question. Whose job is it to make sure users have a positive experience on your project?

Philled with Information – Launching Nov 10, 2011

Welcome to “Philled with Information” a blog that will discuss usability, user experience, user centered design, ux and more…