Andre the giant: source unknown

Size Matters

Getting real about the mobile revolution

Our cultural obsession with technology has been remarkably schizophrenic. Our obsession began with making big things bigger: a big television, a big home, and a fast car. We then shifted to making small things smaller as iPods shrunk from regular to mini to nano. Now, the type is all on making the small things bigger (obviously iPhone sales would skyrocket with a 4 inch…er…5 inch screen, shout the analysts). What gives?

Here’s a novel thought: different activities are best suited to different devices. Some activities are germane to big screens, and some are germane to small screens. Some interaction is best invisible, and some is best highly visible. Different activities lend themselves to different interfaces.

Under this framework, “mobile-first” is inane, “tablet-first” is stupid, as is “any device-first” is simply a bad design recommendation. Start with the device that fits your task at hand. Cameras and GPS are suited to the device that’s always with you. Shopping and reading PDFs? Awesome on a tablet. Gaming? Think both ends of the spectrum: portable/always-available and immersive escapism.

There is a fundamental question at the center of the “mobile (on-the-go) revolution”: where exactly is it that we are all going? Won’t most of us still be working 50 hours a week? Don’t people prefer to work in community (i.e. not always on the go)? Won’t most of us derive additional benefit from doing work on a larger screen?

Taken together, this leads me to 3 conclusions:

1. The primary goal of a company should be “user-first” design. For your product, which matters more: mobility or screen size? Sensors or precision? Productivity or entertainment?
2. There is a natural asymptote to mobile usage predicated on the work week. In other words, most ‘information’ jobs are less well suited things with small screen and inefficient keyboards (voice recognition simply creates a really loud workspace). As a result mobile usage penetration (thinking phone over tablet) should slow somewhat (caveat in last paragraph).
3. Desktop has the potential for comeback. Desktop doesn’t inherently suck, but to date, it’s been far from awesome. Mobile pushed developers and designers to new boundaries. These UX innovations have been spilling back over into desktop, and coupled with HTML5 and other developments, pave the way for some pretty insane web app experiences. My company, Just the List is working to make wedding planning easy and awesome.

Where does this lead us?

At the end of the day, our devices consist of four things:

1. Inputs: touch screens, mouses (mice?), Leap Motions, etc.
2. Outputs: screens, audio, haptic feedback, etc.
3. Storage
4. Processing

In the future, it’s likely that the current distinction between mobile and desktop blurs…we will have one central computing/storage device (cloud or local), and many screens and sensors.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can find me on Twitter at @brandonjcarl