What if designers worried about digit size instead?

Luke Wroblewski, a respected designer who sold a company to Twitter and more recently founded Polar, an app maker, thinks it's time to reconsider mobile design principles. Instead of worrying about questions like whether to upsize smartphone apps for tablets, designers should start by asking how their users will physically interact with their devices when using an app.

The technical term for this is input type—keyboard versus touchscreen, one-handed or two-handed interactions, and the like. This requires designers to think about how a device is held, which fingers are used, and how the app in question can optimize the experience for users' dexterity. 

The Beginning: Start With Responsive Design

For a smartphone, the primary input type has become a single hand with a single finger, typically the thumb. For tablets, it's two hands with two inputs, typically both thumbs. And for desktops, it's still restricted largely to the mouse, trackpad, and keyboard, but can branch out in rare circumstances, in the case of devices like the Chromebook Pixel or Microsoft Surface to touchscreen inputs as well. 

Wroblewski's Polar makes an iOS app that lets users poll friends on any topic and then build communities around these topics. Just last week, Polar launched a desktop Web client that is designed to match not just the look but the functionality of the mobile app versions and the input types taken into account with each one. As you change the size of your window, the app morphs from the desktop version to the tablet/touchscreen computer version, and then down to its smartphone version.

If you resize ReadWrite in a browser window, you'll see a similar transformation. This is known as responsive design, and it's an increasingly popular approach to Web design. Last week, at its I/O conference, Google unveiled tools that promise to make it much easier to build responsive websites.

That way, Polar not only looks the same in-app for the iPhone and iPad as it does on the mobile Web, but it adapts for pretty much every platform for optimal use. It's not about scaling the layout of interface objects up and down; it's about scaling the whole experience up or down. 

Next: Think About How We Hold Our Devices

But responsive design has largely been limited to these screen-size adjustments. Input type may be an even more important concept because it factors in both the physical limitations of the device from a display and functionality standpoint as well as how those limitations translate to our physical interactions with the devices. 

Wroblewski detailed the input-type approach to design in a blog post on May 13 that covered the app's new Web client, which lets users quickly scroll through and vote on topic pages related to everything from Star Wars and Game of Thrones to Web design and photography.

"Topic pages on Polar were designed to adapt to not only different screen sizes but to different input types as well," Wroblewski writes. "The end result is a Web interface that aims to fit into the reality of Web use today. In particular, the human ergonomics of how people interact with different devices ..."

It turns out that thinking about ergonomics on mobile devices and adapting design accordingly is not a widely used approach. Steven Hoober, who Wroblewski cites as his primary source for input-type research, published a report earlier this year on UXmatters, "How Do Users Really Hold Mobile Devices?" that collected two months of observations on how more than 1,300 people used their mobile devices. 

Hoober's report aimed to dispel the myth that designers should follow a "best practices" approach to app design that relies on assumptions that cast the widest net. Instead, Hoober advises that the approach should be far more customized, taking into account the constantly changing nature of mobile use that is contingent on factors like device type and screen size as well as physical location, be it standing or sitting on a bus or in a cafe. 

"The way in which users hold their phone is not a static state," Hoober writes. "Users change the way they’re holding their phone very often—sometimes every few seconds."

While Hoober did verify the assumption that majority of smartphone use is done one-handed with the thumb—49% of the time—he also discovered that designing from that standpoint alone could lead users to alter their behavior and thus deemphasize the very reasons underlying the approach.

"What if a user sees buttons at the top, so switches to cradling his phone to more easily reach all functionality on the screen—or just prefers holding it that way all the time?" he explains.  

Comfort-First Approach

Wroblewski stresses that Polar was designed primarily to be "comfortable to use," incorporating the ideas behind Hoober's findings into the app's design to cover the best input types for every device.  

For instance, Polar's smartphone app contains no left-hand column because users wouldn't typically be able to access it comfortably using one hand and one finger. It does support keyboard use in the event someone is using a large-screen phone-tablet hybrid, also known as a phablet, that's more typically held with two hands.

By contrast, when using Polar on a full tablet, a browsing column is present to take advantage of two-handed use. That's placed strategically on the left edge, with voting options on the right to take advantage of quick thumb access to the left and right sides of the screen. 

The desktop version of Polar mostly matches the mobile app experience. The main difference: When Polar detects a large enough screen, it adds keyboard support.

This type of comfort-first approach has its downsides.

"Looking at the Polar interface on a laptop can be a bit disconcerting because we’ve essentially left the middle of the page 'blank,'" Wroblewski says. This runs contrary to the fill-'et-up instincts of most Web designers, but it's the only way Polar could create something that easily scales down both aesthetically and functionally from a 27-inch monitor to a 4-inch smartphone screen. 

While these methods are very much experimental, they showcase the implementation of a much more sophisticated approach for thinking about mobile app design. We know that the diversity of devices is only increasing. With responsive design, we've scrapped a one-size-fits-all approach to screen size. The next step is to discard one-swipe-fits-all thinking about how we interact with those screens.

Photo by Intel Free Press

No matter where in the world you go, you remain tied to some latitude/longitude position in time and space. This is what makes local media and local commerce so powerful and the reason why real-time, on-demand services delivered via smartphone are becoming so important.

Already, if you're in New York City, you can Uber (on-demand car service) yourself to the airport, eBay Now laundry detergent from Target, Jetsetter Tonight yourself a quick weekend getaway and even Zeel yourself a massage at 10pm before you go to bed.

What A Local-Commerce-Enabled World Would Look Like

Soon enough, location-based platforms will enable us to Uber (or Seamless) a pizza from our favorite Joe's Pizza to enjoy while having a picnic in the park. While you're munching your slice of Joe's in the park, perhaps you might want to simultaneously Zeel yourself a massage too?

Better yet, how about OkCupid/Match Mobile-ing yourself a date with the gal/guy sitting on the bench across from you? If that works out, you may not need that Zeel after all, and you might want to extend the date and OLO (mobile payments/ordering) "Groupon-discounted" theater tickets to a Broadway show. (If nothing else, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason did a phenomenal job making it OK to use a coupon on a first date.)

There will eventually be an Uber for everything local. Consumers will be able to Uber a plumber, Uber a place to live (Airbnb or Zillow style), Uber a ZocDoc, Uber a hairdresser, the list goes on... But all that's only the beginning. Here are four more inevitabilities brought to you by local commerce:

1. Paper becomes obsolete - except maybe toilet paper. The United States Postal Service will also become obsolete - or end up as Amazon's express delivery unit. The telephone companies, traditional print media and direct-mail companies will have no choice but to go green and stop publishing/delivering their printed directories and circulars. Without the USPS, paper checks will also become obsolete.

(See also ReadWrite's coverage of paperless technology.)

2. The arrival of self-service, location-based, deals-on-demand.  In the same way food trucks now use Twitter as a mobile coupon platform, local small businesses like Joe's Pizza will finally adopt Groupon Now's self-service vision. Joe will be able to promote deals to sell off the rest of his pepperoni slices at 3pm when the restaurant is empty. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc. will launch (or acquire) self-service, location-based "Deals-on-Demand" direct marketing/couponing platforms.

(See also 5 Reasons Foursquare Is Losing The Social Local Mobile Revolution.)

3. Brick-and-mortar retailers become showrooms. Traditional physical retailers will jump on the local commerce bandwagon and embrace the role of showrooms for online and mobile purchases, or they will go out of business. Retail chains, together with startups like ShopRunner as well as some of the e-commerce giants will begin to make the model work for local retailers. Amazon Locker and Google's Shopping Express and BufferBox will get real showrooms where customers can see and scan items for next day delivery. WalMart, eBay and others will follow suit.

(See also Showrooming: 5 Ways Retailers Can Fight Back.)

4. Cash becomes obsolete. Consumers will (finally) be able to pay for all local products and services by waving or tapping their mobile device. Cash will slowly wither and die.

(For a different opinion, see also Mobile Payments' Cashless Utopia is Not Coming Any Time Soon.)

Joe's Pizza mage courtesy of Rob Young/Flickr.

As you might imagine, these people are often woefully overworked, not equipped to handle the stacks of problems they face. They are in this situation because the geniuses in the executive suite believe that the company needs to “do mobile” - but because they don't really understand the value, they're unwilling to invest more than the absolute minimum amount of resources.

This scenario is a reality in many non-tech, Fortune 500 types of companies. They know they have to go mobile but have no idea what that really mean.

Research firm IDC has a better idea than the classic “band-aid on a shotgun wound” approach to new IT solutions for large enterprises: Mobile Centers of Excellence.

What Is A Mobile Center Of Excellence?

According to the IDC whitepaper, sponsored by Netbiscuits, A Mobile Center of Excellence (mCoE) offers a framework for enterprises to organize, manage and distribute their mobile enterprise solutions and initiatives. They can help develop and distribute internal mobile apps - need a CRM app or something to help the accounting department? Ask the mCoE - as well as external apps for customers and clients. An mCoE would help the IT department with security and BYOD issues, help implement infrastructure and cloud solutions for apps and generally serve as the nerve center for everything mobile in the enterprise. 

IDC thinks enterprises could deploy four different kinds of mCoE:

1. Best Practice Centers.
2. IT-Focused.
3. Federated (integrated with business units and IT).
4. Dedicated Mobility Business Units.

The chart below outlines the characteristics of each type:

What's The Real Value Of An mCoE?

It is very easy for a research and consulting firm to write a white paper claiming, “Hey, you should have a Mobile Center of Excellence.” Most likely, if you call IDC for consulting help on how to set up an mCoE, it would be happy to charge you hefty fees for its advice. Everybody is selling something, and it shouldn't be a surprise that the mCoE whitepaper was sponsored by a mobile platform company. 

The name itself is a red flag. Imagine a new IT buyer coming to a new company, turning to the person next to him and asking, “Where is the Mobility Center of Excellence?” He'd get laughed out of the room. 

Really though, what the mCoE idea boils down to is that every big company needs a group of knowledgeable people that have the requisite skills and resources to handle mobile solutions quickly and efficiently. These people need to have power to make decisions, well-defined jobs that give them autonomy they need get things done. Enabling a group within your IT infrastructure to handle everything mobile problems could actually create competitive advantage for many companies.  

Whether you call it a Mobile Center of Excellence or just create a de facto sub-group within your organization that takes the lead in mobile practices isn't the point. The point is that enterprises can better manage their mobile priorities by assigning the task to a particular unit empowered to drive solutions for the entire company.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Mobile devices have become the world's steady companions that we take anywhere and use everywhere. A recent forecast by McKinsey & Company estimates that by 2014, 1.7 billion mobile devices will be accessing the Internet - and a steady diet of online content. Widespread smartphone and tablet adoption is giving birth to a new ecosystem of mobile apps. Apple with its iTunes App Store is currently the gold-standard of the mobile experience, and it enables distribution to millions of users. In early 2013, Apple announced that users had downloaded an astounding 40 billion apps from its App Store, with almost half of that total logged in the last year.

The rollout of smart mobile apps yields numerous benefits not only to consumers but also for the enterprise. Mobile apps for business must offer the expected, Apple-easy download experience, but the enterprise requires quite a bit more for apps to be successful and risk-free. Many companies are struggling to manage the proliferation of mobile apps and connect to business content.

Here are seven critical areas for enterprises to address as apps multiply through the mobile enterprise ecosystem.

1. Not Point Products: Using An Enterprise Mobility Platform

The basic foundation of the mobile enterprise begins with deployment of the devices - employee and corporate-owned — along with a portfolio of productivity apps. The goal is simple: The user downloads an app and starts using it. All onboarding, app registration and bootstrapping is done by the enterprise mobility platform — the server strings, logon information or certificates are pushed to the user’s device automatically.

2. Configuration: Based On Roles And Responsibility

Deployment and configuration policies have to go hand-in-hand. Ultimately, enterprise workers want to be able to use any device and any app, accessing content without any roadblocks. Ideally, if an employee has an iPhone or Android phone provided to them, they will immediately have the secured content and correct business apps configured based on their roles and responsibilities (finance, HR, sales, etc.).

3. Deployment: Cloud vs. On Premise

Enterprises have a choice of where they get content and apps. They can come from the cloud, be stored on premise, or in some hybrid combination. This piece of the mobile equation doesn’t have a correct answer, but IT has to remain keenly aware where each component of mobile content resides and (most importantly) who has authorized access.

4. Beyond MDM: Managing Devices, Apps, Content And Things

IT must maintain control over how mobile devices access corporate information: At the very least, IT has to be able to turn off the device, content or app if the mobile hardware is lost or stolen. A key component of that is creating lockable configuration and security policies. Mobile Device Management (MDM) software helps IT centrally manage, secure and deploy mobile data, applications and devices, including tablets and phones. The journey continues beyond MDM to Mobile App Mgmt (MAM), Mobile Content Mgmt (MCM) and eventually takes you on the journey to securing not just devices but every machine in the Internet of Things.

5. Security: At Every Stage In The Lifecycle

A Symantec study calculated that the average annual cost of mobile breaches for an enterprise business was $429,000. Security has to be part of the fabric of mobile throughout the enterprise. It must be integrated into the initial mobile strategy - and into each subsequent stage in the mobile lifecycle. It must be nimble and designed for the post-PC era of mobile computing.

6. Interoperability: Take A Cross-Platform Approach

In a mobile enterprise, all devices, apps and cloud services need to recognize each other and be able to share content. As we deal with a combination of HTML-based mobile-Web apps and device-native apps, three key factors contribute to interoperability.

First is cross-platform support. Most enterprises will have to cater to Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows and BlackBerry.

The second factor is backend connectivity: While all mobile users will run Tripit, for example, against the same hosted backend, your enterprise apps needs to run against your company’s backend systems. For example, a customer relationship management (CRM) app needs to access your customers in your CRM system. A Leave Request app has to run against your own enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Third, enterprise apps must adhere to your company's information technology security standards. Employees will access your corporate data from the open Internet, and you need to safeguard your business data.

7. Mobile Apps: Buy And/Or Develop Your Own

Mobility starts with the app creator, which could be an individual developer, a customer who wants to develop an app, a partner or an internal development team. Many larger organizations will benefit by designing their own apps for mobile-enabled business processes. These mobile solutions can tap into different applications and workflow tools using dashboards to monitor everything from sales to the health of the entire business in real time.

Some apps may be developed and used internally to solve a specific task in the company. Others maybe standardized to be sold via the various app stores, both platform specific outlets such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone App Store or BlackBerry World.

Canonical shrugged off the criticism. Today it showed off some early previews of Ubuntu for smartphones in a video keynote by founder Mark Shuttleworth. The timeline for an Ubuntu smartphone is still dated for 2014 and no manufacturers or cellular carriers have signed up to build or distribute it yet. But hey, we can dream.

The Ubuntu for smartphones OS relies on swipes from the edges of the screen for navigation. Swipe left to find recent apps, swipe right to toggle between the last app you used, swipe up from the bottom to show app buttons and down from the top to access settings. Ubuntu for smartphones will also have in-app voice navigation. 

See the keynote below for more of a look. Shuttleworth notes some of Ubuntu's growth in the first couple of minutes before diving into the operating system for smartphones. 

The real beauty of this (still) theoretical Ubuntu smartphone, though, is the cross-platform potential that Canonical could bring to the smartphone industry. Ubuntu will be able to work on PCs and laptops, television sets and be able to easily intregrate with its own backend clients and servers. One OS to rule them all? It is an interesting proposition.

Canonical’s stated goals with Ubuntu for smartphones is to target both the low-end international market with cheap devices as well as high-end market designed to penetrate the enterprise. In the mobile hardware industry, those are the areas of greatest vulnerability right now and Canonical is smart to target them. Google’s Android has become a worldwide powerhouse by creating an ecosystem where mobile manufacturers can easily and quickly roll out new devices and ship them to cellular carriers across the world. 

The Bottom Of The Market

The problem that Canonical will run into with the bottom-of-the-market approach is that other would-be smartphone OS creators have figured out that is where the growth is as well. And those other players are ahead of Canonical’s development cycle. Mozilla will target foreign markets with its Firefox OS, which is expected to launch its first devices in the second half of 2013. Tizen, stewarded by The Linux Foundation with the backing of Samsung and Intel, will also appear in international markets first, with Samsung having already announced that the first Tizen smartphone will make an appearance on Japan’s NTT Docomo in the first half of this year. If Canonical is looking for growth strategies in mobile, it may be running out of seats at the table.

Pacing Behind In The Enterprise

From an enterprise standpoint, Canonical will be behind the mobile eight-ball if and when it launches a smartphone. This is as much a matter of timing as utility. While the idea of a smartphone OS that can be vertically integrated to backend systems and horizontally to PCs seems like an enterprise dream, Canonical will be entering a crowded market come 2014. Enterprise IT departments tend to work in 18-36 month timelines. Smart enterprises jumped on the mobile bandwagon years ago and, once those systems are put in place, companies are loathe to change them without a very good reason. Even slower enterprises are now making their decisions on enterprise mobility, working with vendors like Apple and Research In Motion to put systems in place that will work in years to come. Canonical will probably be able to tap its existing enterprise clients to secure a small install base, but Shuttleworth better hope he has a really good sales team if he hopes to steal enterprise clients away from the other industry options. 

From first blush, Ubuntu for smartphones looks intriguing. It is a little different from iOS and Android but not so off that consumers will not know what they are doing with it (a problem that has plagued Windows Phone to a certain extent). Canonical will have to make sure that it creates a robust app ecosystem to accompany the operating system, but the focus on apps in Shuttleworth’s keynote shows that the company realizes that apps are integral to succeeding in the mobile ecosystem. 

Canonical’s strategy seems sound. But the timing, strength of the competition and temperament of consumers and enterprises may ultimately work against it. Do you think Ubuntu will succeed in mobile? Let us know in the comments.