The mobile web experience

The results are in for our mobile web design survey started back in September and after reviewing the 56 pages of results in detail we have some pretty interesting facts to share that might enlighten your understanding of the mobile web. If you’re already a mobile web guru we hope the results might help further develop the mobile experience into a much more user-friendly experience. If you have little or no knowledge then expect to be informed and entertained with some of the results. Who knows – you might just begin to realize the possibilities and begin using the mobile web!

Really, who’s using the mobile web?
Our survey was released publicly and we want to thank all 875 of you who took time to share your experience (or lack of experience) with the mobile web. Majority of the results, 826 to be exact, were from residents of the United States. There were also responses from Europe (24), Asia (3), South America (2), and other countries (5 – yes, that includes Canadians). We had 327 men and 529 women share responses with us. And the majority of which were 19-29 years old (459) followed by 30-45 years (173), 18 or younger (140), 46-60 years (76), and we’re glad to see that 12 people in the 60+ age group took time to take the survey. Of the respondents there were 367 people who claimed to use the mobile web, but then again as we look at some of the responses a bit closer you’ll find that more of you are probably using the mobile web and just haven’t realized it yet. The leading provider used of those that took the survey was Cingluar (307) followed by other (222- we assume this is most of our T-mobile users), Sprint (148), Verizon (116), Nextel (61), Cingular One (5), Alltel (3), and 30 of you claimed you do not own a cell phone.

Houston, we have a problem!
We heard many of you exclaim your frustrations with the mobile web and a great reason for your frustrations are the number of mobile devices available on the market today. So when you want to slam your mobile device against a wall because you’re annoyed with the experience using the web just keep in mind there are literally hundreds of different devices, way too many to list here. Some of the popular ones we noticed were the Motorola Razor, Blackberry, Samsung, Nintendo DS, PSP, and palm pilots. What makes matters worse is that most phones have totally different mobile web browsers created by their manufacturers. Web designers are frustrated enough developing and testing web sites for computers using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. The courageous mobile web developers must not only develop for multiple devices but also potentially hundreds of different mobile web browsers. Non-proprietary browsers, such as Opera Mini, might be worth trying to help alleviate the toss-the-phone-out-the-window feeling. Chances are that developers have tested on this browser and not one of the hundreds of others that come with your mobile device. Plus Opera mini helps compress the pages a bit better so they load faster. And yes, 76 of you admitted to doing this – I assume these are our serious mobile web users.

You do WHAT with your device?
Okay, what you do on your own time is your own business but I must say that many of you shared some pretty revealing experiences with the mobile web. Here’s what you said you do with your mobile device:

• Text or instant messaging (708 of you admitted to doing this)
• Check or send email (308)
• Purchase ringtones (428 – perhaps this is why there was a ringtone award in this years MTV Music Awards?)
• Upload or download photos (459 – long live flickr! Too bad pictures taken on mobile devices are horrid)
• Check movie times (211)
• Find directions (199)
• Access site via a carrier deck (67)
• Check the weather
• To get the surf report
• To get the traffic report
• Find out sports scores
• To play games
• To search for information
• To pay bills and keep up with bank accounts
• Then there’s myspace, facebook, and blogging
• Ebay
• Keep up with the news
• To check horoscope
• To get the lotto numbers
• A few realtors responded saying they used it to help locate properties
• We won’t tell your boss but some of you admitted to using your mobile device to access sites you aren’t permitted to use at work

And yes, we heard the Valencia respondents who expressed an interested in accessing and using the Valencia web site, atlas, and webCT via their mobile devices and how it might help make it more convenient to complete their coursework – Did you hear that Dr. Shugart? These sound like some great suggestions.

Who needs frustration?
Perhaps a big reason why the mobile web is becoming more and more popular is because it’s with you constantly. It’s easy to have your energy funneled into trying to be more efficient and get things done while you are away from your computer. Yes, we heard many of you comment that you felt the advance in technology sadly has caused an addiction that takes a lot of people away from some of the more important things in life, but just as computers have evolved and become a part of society, mobile devices will only advance as time progresses. Thankfully we shall welcome improvements, because one thing’s for sure – right now MOST of us are frustrated with the mobile web experience. It can only get better right? So grunt as I’m sure you’ll agree with these frustrating reasons we are annoyed with using the mobile web (and we’ll just hope the mobile web developers and providers are listening up):

• The device window is too small
• It’s a pain to type URL’s, emails, etc.
• It’s hard to navigate around web pages and very cumbersome to use many devices.
• Many web sites are not intended for mobile devices, so they take forever to load. (Did we mention, the mobile web is slow?)
• It costs too much, who wants to pay an extra $10-15 to be more frustrated was the general consensus. Most people are able to just wait to use a computer.

The mobile web will grow up someday
Though the mobile web is still somewhat in it’s infancy, you should be reassured that developers are concentrating on trying to improve the experience. Hopefully some of this feedback helps shape this evolving technology. One thing’s for sure, it shows no signs of magically disappearing. So as the mobile web continues to grow and become more a part of today’s society we must now embrace it. Once again we’d like to thank all of you who participated in this survey. Your responses have helped us better understand limitations, factors, and frustrations experienced that play a big role in how designers and developers move forward with this technology.

At the end of the semester students in our CSS Design course will be launching a research project to sum up their new found knowledge of the mobile web, which we’ll share as the semester comes to an end. If you are a mobile web developer and would like a copy of the survey to review further for research purposes please send me an email at akern@valenciacc.edu.