Mobile-First V.S Mobile-First
There seems to be a lot of confusion and skepticism when it comes to taking on a “mobile-first” approach. Although there are different directions when taking on various devices, one thing is certain; mobile is extremely valuable to the users — even when the number of active users is significantly low. Before we dive any further, let’s understand the issue.
The misconception: We’re not that kind of company
Unfortunately, some people believe that adopting a “mobile-first” strategy means making mobile the highest priority, which means shifting focus away from other areas. Yes, the term itself does sound like it, but it’s a misconception that can have a negative effect in the long run. We also have those that think “mobile-first” is meant only for social apps, or apps with a much higher mobile usage compared to desktop. As a result, when companies have low mobile usage, most of the investment is shifted to desktop, leaving mobile development a step behind competitors and the mobile team finding themselves playing catch-up with an outdated app that has poor user experience, low engagement, and a declining retention rate.
Even if numbers are low, are you sure about your active users?
Some applications have significantly higher active users on mobile compared to the desktop version; great examples are apps for social media, restaurants, and online radio. And then there are others, business and enterprise productivity apps for example, which data proves to be the opposite — since people primarily run the app on their computers at work. Strategically speaking, for apps like Facebook, it seems as though putting mobile at the highest priority makes better sense since users spend over 95% of their time on the mobile version. As for these other apps, if there are more active users on the desktop version, why not invest more time and resources on that side? Well, it depends on how you’re looking at the data. If user engagement and retention rate is a priority, you might want to take another look at the data. From my experience with productivity apps, it’s been proven that users with mobile as a companion to the desktop version significantly improves the overall customer experience; not only are users more engaged but less likely to drop off. In short, the data was compared between users with and without the mobile version in a certain period. This tells us that it doesn’t matter if the frequency is low, they’re still golden. Basically, if they continue using the mobile version, you’ll likely win them over, decreasing the risk of them jumping to an alternative product, and worse, a competitor.
So about the term “Mobile-First”…
“Mobile first” became popular in UX and product development roughly about 9 years ago, but why and by who? It’s possible that the buzz started by Google when they announced their mobile strategy in 2010 at the Mobile World Congress exhibition, or maybe further back when Apple launched the App Store with 500 apps back in 2008. Before you say it’s because of mobile apps, remember though, apps were new to many companies around that time. Facebook, for example, released a web version for mobile in 2007 and after several different concepts and directions, they finally took on a “mobile-first” approach and release the native app (for iPhones) in 2012. But regardless of how companies adopt a mobile strategy, the original concept around “mobile-first” was really about optimizing websites and apps for different screen sizes, and because there is less friction in terms of the design and development process, the mobile screen was suggested to be the starting point and then slowly scaling up.
Furthermore, as the smartphone was gaining popularity during that time, users were begging for companies to provide a “mobile-friendly” user experience. If you had the unfortunate experience of surfing the web on mobile in the early days, you remember how awful it was; text and images was either too small or too big, links was impossible to tap because it was meant for a mouse click, and the speed of downloading information was a nightmare. With that being said, the concerns may have pushed companies to take notice and adopt some sort of mobile strategy.
Personally, as a designer, I can say that the term started becoming widespread around the same time as the release of the book, “Mobile First,” in 2011 by Luke Wroblewski, which detailed many pain points and use cases to help outline a strategy on how to start with the small screen and then scale up. I believe that with the book, along with Google’s mobile strategy, the many articles and blogs that followed, customer complaints, and the hype of the revolutionary iPhone — it just all came together.
Mobile-first doesn’t necessarily mean putting mobile a higher priority, but…
Looking through the mobile lens allows teams to rethink about the feature — to ask, how will this look on mobile? If you ask a mobile product designer or engineer, they will likely tell you that companies sometimes built new features without considering mobile and right when they’re about to ship on desktop, they scramble and try to cramp everything into mobile to meet deadline; unfortunately, the feature becomes a rush, low-quality project, cheating users out of the feature’s full potential — not to mention, a waste of an investment. To avoid this, the mobile team should always be part of the feature discussions in the beginning. Being able to understand the requirements together and putting a focus on a smaller screen first helps both teams identify the challenges — one obvious reason is the constraint of the screen size. This not only helps simplify the feature but also find a middle ground in case there is some minor setbacks. Careful vetting also allows both to provide a good estimation for the release; there are times when a feature can be built on mobile much faster (ex. due to the OS native components). Having teams in an agreement, the feature is well-thought-out, even if some compromises were made, and users have the best of both worlds, mobile, and desktop.
Not just a competitive edge, but an expectation from users
It’s now 2020, and the experience isn’t just a competitive edge for companies anymore. In the race for the best product, apps have become much more advanced, and the user experience is so competitive that it’s becoming an expectation from all users. They want to have the same positive experience as other apps and when they jump from one to another, it doesn’t take much to see the imperfections. Remember, “Mobile first” didn’t just become a hot topic without the complaints from these users. This, along with delayed or missed releases, costly mistakes, frustration between engineering, product, and design teams, has proven that “mobile- first” is a powerful strategy. For those that are still hesitant about the term “mobile- first,” let’s forget the term for a second and think about the reason why mobile is being used as the starting point, and why the experience matters for the overall customer experience. Based on the data mentioned earlier, if you know that just by simply having users continuously using the mobile app, along with the desktop version, can give you a higher retention rate and improve user engagement, why would you let the low mobile usage and active users convince you otherwise. These mobile apps are a powerful companion to the desktop version so why not give your users a top-notch mobile experience and a great reason not to drop off.
