mobile information architecture

Mobile Information Architecture

Designing Experiences for the Mobile Web @ IA Summit 2007

A Mobile Web?

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A Mobile Web?

Coming of age

Becoming affordable

Escaping the limitations of WAP 1.0

Existing alongside mobile apps and texting

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Profoundly DifferentBut the mobile interface is still

profoundly different from the desktop/laptop interface.

It's not just a matter of size and space limitations.

The context is different. The desktop and even the laptop are fundamentally stolid. You move around them and stay anchored to them.

The mobile web comes with you everywhere.

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ContextThe mobile web browser is seeking information (often), yes, but most likely this person is looking for the answers to questions and not for a long involved reading experience.

They want facts: addresses, movie times, support

They want access to their own information.

This is Thomas Vander Wal’s “come to me web” in action.


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Emerging PatternsMobile applications are also establishing some expectations among users.

Menu choices are often presented as vertical lists, usually with numerical accesskeys to provide shortcuts from the device's keypad.

Working with these emerging standards makes sense when possible.

A Series of ChoicesThe mobile IA and interaction design

process requires a number of either/or choices.

There is no single right/wrong answer.

“It depends.”

But each choice involves a tradeoff, so you need to know what you’re buying and what you’re spending.

Go Mobile?The first decision concerns whether to

build for the mobile web at all.Not every website is useful or necessary

or makes sense for mobile users.The trend, however, is to find mobile uses

for most web presences and services.As always, consider context. If your site

or application makes sense on the mobile web, which parts of it belong there. Which content? Which features?

One site or two?Can you build a single site that will work perfectly well in both contexts?

Should you?

Does all the “stabile” content belong in the mobile context?

One SiteProsBuild once, display

many.

Avoid redundancy

No synching or version issues with maintenance

Avoid redundancy

ConsRequires strategy and

technical solution for rendering well in each context.

Involves serving up content that may not fit the mobile context

Involves serving up design elements that may not fit the mobile context

Two SitesProsYou can fine-tune

the content and design for each context

ConsMaintenance

challenges

Findability issues (or redirection strategy needed) for mobile users

One-Site SubchoicesDo you try to manage the presentation

differences entirely with CSS and the DOM… …or do you use browser-sniffing to serve up

different content? Will the same content suffice for both

experiences or must it be modified for one or the other?

What do you do with sidebars and how do you make the design degrade gracefully (or enhance progressively) to support the jumble of form factors, mobile operating systems, and browsers that support different subsets of the prevailing standards


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Tailoring the NavigationLimit categories to 5

Up to 10 links can have numerical accesskeys

Minimize the number of levels of navivgation

Don’t be afraid to reorder the site categories by priority

Make telephone numbers links:<a href="tel:+19995551212">+1 999 555-1212</a>

IA Matters!“Be prepared to invest some time or hire an IA to [make clickstream diagrams] for you. You'll spend more time on that than on the actual design”

- Brian Fling, Blue Flavor

And what about .mobi?

“The people that designed .mobi were smoking crack.”

- Tantek Çelik

A Case Studyhttp://www.america.htc.com/mobile/

HTC manufactures about 80% of the Windows Mobile devices in the US market.

HTC is a Taiwanese based company (“High Tech Computer”)

Extractable redesigned their website

america.htc.com

america.htc.com/mobile

Our ChoicesMobile site? Yes, required

One site or two?

- Initial decision: One site

- For the re-launch: Two sites

- Long term: One site

.mobi? Kinda…

One-Site StrategyExplored and rejected CSS magicResearched and adopted mobile-savvy CMSIA of mobile site a subset (+) of the web site

Reduced content on most pagesMinimized images in terms of size and weight

Stripped out sidebar contentRendered navigation as vertical lists

Two-Site FallbackNegotiations between client and vendor dragged on and threatened launch date

We were already building a prototype of the mobile site

We launched with two separate sites built from the same core content, and no CMS

We planned to migrate, with web-only and mobile-only content flagged separately

The Web Sitemap

Web Sitemap Detail

Mobile Sitemap

Unique mobile-site content

Mobile Sitemap Detail

Unique mobile-site content

A Web Wireframe

A Mobile Wireframe

Usability TestingWe brought in users with differing levels of familiarity with smartphones

We had them visit the site on a laptop and the mobile site ona 3125 (flip phone) or 8125 (sliding qwerty).

They found the mobile site easier to use and (this surprised us) easier to read: “…fewer distracting graphics”

See Also

http://blueflavor.com/sxsw2007/

(Brian Fling’s presentation from SxSW)

thank you

Christian CrumlishYahoo! Pattern Detective

Director IT/Web Infrastructure, IA Institute