Nielsen Norman GroupEvidence-Based User Experience Research, Training, and Consulting
We regularly conduct our own usability research about mobile device users, and draw on this knowledge to provide current and actionable information to help guide your mobile strategy. The findings described here cover everything from tablet applications, to mobile operating systems, to optimal mobile content formats.
For even more detail see our new book on Mobile Usability or our selection of full-day Mobile UX Training Courses.
Feline users require special considerations, including larger tap target zones for paws, continual animation, and audible vocalization.
Amazon's new Kindle Fire has much better usability than last year's model—and the 7-inch tablet beats the 9-inch version.
Hidden features, reduced discoverability, cognitive overhead from dual environments, and reduced power from a single-window UI and low information density. Too bad.
Product quality has to be judged in the context of human tasks, and reviews should emphasize real use—not raw numbers.
Mobile use strengthens email marketing's benefits by offering ubiquitous newsletter access, but it also introduces new usability limitations for template design.
It's cheap but degrading to reuse content and design across diverging media forms like print vs. online or desktop vs. mobile. Superior UX requires tight platform integration.
The mouse (desktop computer) and the finger (touchscreen) each has unique strengths and weaknesses. Thus different UI designs are best for desktop vs mobile.
Good mobile user experience requires a different design than what's needed to satisfy desktop users. Two designs, two sites, and cross-linking to make it all work.
Mobile apps currently have better usability than mobile sites, but forthcoming changes will eventually make a mobile site the superior strategy.
Overloading different outcomes on similar commands can be confusing. Using the same command for multiple actions enhances usability if the results are conceptually the same.
Mobile web sites work best on the 7-inch tablet. Users had great trouble touching the correct items on full sites, where UI elements are too small on the Fire screen.
Many guidelines are similar for mobile and desktop design, but their mobile interpretation is much more unforgiving.
Writing for mobile readers requires even harsher editing than writing for the Web. Mobile use implies less patience for filler copy.
The user experience of mobile websites and apps has improved since our last research, but still has far to go. A dedicated mobile site is a must, and apps get even higher usability scores.
Mobile use will rise, but desktop computers will remain important, forcing companies to design for multiple platforms, requiring continuity in visual design, features, user data, and tone of voice.
Mobile devices require a tight focus in content presentation, with the first screen limited to only the most essential information.
A confusing startup screen that offends existing subscribers dooms The Wall Street Journal's iPhone app to low ratings.
In a miniature information architecture, coverage of a single topic is chunked into units that are connected through simple navigation.
iPad apps are much improved, but new usability problems have emerged, such as swipe ambiguity and navigation overload.
Websites and mobile apps both frequently cram options into too-small parts of the screen, making items harder to understand.
A single mobile screen with almost no features still required 10 design changes to meet usability guidelines for mobile websites.
When reading from an iPhone-sized screen, comprehension scores for complex Web content were 48% of desktop monitor scores.
New research finds improved usability metrics for subscribing to newsletters, but problems with reading them on mobile devices.
A study of people reading long-form text on tablets finds higher reading speeds than in the past, but they're still slower than reading print.
iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.
Most mobile applications are used only intermittently, so they must be especially easy during initial use. In particular, upfront registration shouldn't be required before users experience an app's benefits.
In user testing, website use on mobile devices got very low scores, especially when users accessed 'full' sites that weren't designed for mobile.
Writing for Kindle is like writing for print, the Web, and mobile devices combined; optimal usability means optimizing content for each platform's special characteristics.
Amazon's new e-book reader offers print-level readability and shines for reading fiction, but it has awkward interaction design and poor support for non-linear content.
Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions.
There is room in the market for a device in-between laptops and cellphones. But Palm Foleo isn't it. It's too close to a laptop.
Bystanders rated mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor.
New mobile devices show a huge improvement over previous generations, but they're still not good enough to score a real win. To get there, we need both PC-integrated applications and specialized mobile services rather than repurposed website content.
About half of the users now access the Internet from more than one location. Despite the implications of this for service design, many systems assume that users remain bound to a single computer.
Navigating a full browsing session to find information can be unpleasant and slow, particularly on mobile devices. Instead, issue a deferred request and have the information arrive later, as done by some SMS systems.
New mobile devices and services are more realistic and useful than last year's models, and will likely expand mobile device adoption. Design usability and simplicity are key, particularly for the automotive market where complexity can be dangerous. DEMOmobile Conference on Mobile Computing 2001.
Japan is now shipping a wide variety of new Internet-connected devices. Among the highlights are new mobile photography units like Eggy, and i-mode telephones with liberating two-dimensional controls.
Europe's cellular phone system is far superior to that in the United States. However, telephones will not be the platform for the mobile Internet. Given this, Europe's advantage may in fact be an obstacle to real innovations, as France's experience with Minitel shows.
Following a UK field study, 70% of users decided not to continue using WAP mobile phones. Mobile's killer app is killing time; m-commerce's prospects are dim for the next several years. Current services are poorly designed, have insufficient task analysis, and abuse existing non-mobile design guidelines.
The current generation of mobile Internet products and services has miserable usability (as shown at the DEMOmobile 2000 conference). New devices like Blackberry, Modo, and a prototype Microsoft telephone do better.
Experience with WAP in Europe shows that it is hard to use. Because of the miserable usability of the small phones, services must be re-designed for each handset, increasing maintenance costs.
Micropayments will start with value-added content; mobile access; advice and sales become unbundled and physical experience environments may launch.
Specialized Internet applications will return to provide richer UIs than are possible in browsers, but browsers will remain and new, smaller devices will arise, so content and features must work across three levels of sophistication. WAP will fail.
The book metaphor is too strong and leads designers astray, missing out on the computer's potential for dynamic and interactive text.
"Data phones" would be more widely adopted if they functioned more like a computer with voice communication, rather than a telephone with data memory.