Mobile User Experience 1: Usability of Websites and Apps on Mobile Devices
- New York: Monday, February 27
- Las Vegas: Thursday, March 15
- Edinburgh: Monday, March 19
- San Francisco: Monday, April 2
- Amsterdam: Monday, April 23
- Washington D.C.: Monday, May 14
Amy Schade
Raluca Budiu
Full-Day Training Course
How do we create a satisfactory user experience when limited to a small device?
This seminar is based on expert reviews, as well as international studies with participants
ranging from students to early technology adopters and business people using websites on a variety
of mobile devices. We also report on the latest findings from articles published in prestigious
journals and conferences.
Our user research included smartphones, touchphones, as well as feature phones from several
different vendors. The seminar will discuss the issues in designing for this range of devices,
with a focus on smartphones and touchphones, since research indicates that these are the primary
devices used for mobile Internet access.
In this seminar we target basic mobile usability principles that go beyond any specific phone model.
What You’ll Learn
- What behaviors users engage in when using mobile devices
- Mobile app versus mobile website: which is better
- Guidelines and best practices about how to make your website mobile-friendly, with emphasis on:
- Features that make mobile sites usable
- Easy navigation on mobile devices
- Writing and producing content for mobile device
Course Outline
Mobile user behaviors:
- What kinds of activities people do on mobile devices
- Differences between apps and websites
- Browsing for news, entertainment, sports
- Finding specific information (weather, movie times, etc.)
- Transactions (such as online banking and other financial operations)
- Shopping: what do users shop for on mobile
- Designing to support user behaviors
Design strategy considerations:
- Creating a dedicated mobile site vs. having mobile users access your regular website
- Designing for high-end models vs. the lowest common denominator
- Direct manipulation UI for touchphones (e.g., iPhone, BlackBerry Storm)
- Indirect manipulation for low-end devices
- Creating a mobile application vs. a mobile website; when to use what
- Differences in designing an app versus a mobile website
Basic usability guidelines for mobile sites and apps:
- Basic interaction
- Typing
- Dropdown Boxes, Buttons, and Links
- Lists and Scrolling
- Menus
- Carousels
- Forms
- Logging In and Registering
- Search
- Navigation and information architecture (IA)
- Errors
- Page layout
- Search
- Homepages
- Images, Animation, and Videos
- Content usability
- How users read on mobile devices
- Writing for mobile use
- Presenting text: legibility and readability
- Designing for feature phones: differences from smartphones and touchphones
- How to perform usability testing with mobile devices
Format
This full-day tutorial includes lectures, video highlights from user testing, and some exercises.
Handouts
Copies of the presentation slides and a free copy of Nielsen Norman Group’s research report Usability of Mobile Websites & Applications (a $298 value).
Who Should Attend
Anybody who designs websites, intranets, or online services that have mobile users.
People in charge of mobile strategy, including the question of whether to develop dedicated mobile services.
See Also:
This seminar is about the basic usability principles that are valid for both mobile websites and
apps and for the full range of mobile devices. A companion seminar, Mobile User Experience 2
focuses on issues specific to designing applications for touchscreen devices.
What is NOT Covered:
This seminar is solely focused on the user experience and does not cover programming. Although we do
discuss nonconventional app interfaces, this seminar is not intended for game developers.
Instructors
Amy Schade is a Director based in Nielsen Norman
Group’s East Coast office. Schade works with clients internationally in telecommunications,
e-commerce, government, travel, automotive, publishing, banking, non-profit and education,
including extensive work on corporate intranets. She has conducted user research and performed
reviews on a wide variety of websites in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia.
She presents tutorials on user testing, intranet usability, writing for the Web, email newsletter
usability and mobile usability.
She authored the NN/g reports on
intranet usability,
intranet information architecture,
email newsletters, and
site map usability,
as well as the 2010 and 2011 Intranet Design Annuals,
and conducted many user test sessions for reports on
accessibility and
usability for senior citizens.
Before joining NN/g, Schade was an information architect at Arc eConsultancy, where she created
and revised architectures for sites ranging from a family-related content site to a
transaction-based sponsorship marketplace. Schade has also held various positions in web production
and advertising. She has a Master's degree from New York University’s Interactive
Telecommunications Program and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.
Presenting in New York, Edinburgh, and Washington D.C..
Raluca Budiu is a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. At NN/g she consults
for clients from a variety of industries and presents tutorials on mobile usability, usability of touch devices,
cognitive psychology for designers, and principles of human computer interaction. She coauthored the NN/g
reports on mobile usability, iPad usability, and the usability of children’s websites. Budiu previously worked
at Xerox PARC, doing research in human-computer interaction. At PARC, she built computational models of how people
search for information in visualizations of large data structures. She also explored new ways of measuring
information scent and conducted research on interfaces for social bookmarking systems and on the cognitive benefits
of tagging. Budiu was also a user researcher at Microsoft Corporation, where she explored future directions and
made strategic recommendations for incorporating user-generated content and social web features into MSN. Budiu
has authored more than 20 articles and conference presentations on human-computer interaction, psychology, and
cognitive science. She holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Presenting in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Amsterdam.
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