Unlike that old question, ‘which came
first, the chicken or the egg?’, we know the answer to which came first, the
web site, or the app. But will this be the case in years to come and are we now
starting to redefine the development process and presentation, not based on
chronological order but on fast evolving mobile needs?
The IBA have just published a survey
they commissioned from Harris Poll, who collated the views of some 2,000 US
adults in December 2014. The survey questions some of the conclusions made by
an earlier comScore, which claimed that 88% of consumer mobile time is spent in
apps, while some 12% is spent browsing the mobile web.
The IBA findings identified that
there were many variances between; search, shopping, news and local directory
information activity and whilst users may have a preference in one activity
they may have the opposite in another. There is then the web use that is in
fact ‘web access hidden in app clothing’, where the app is merely a link to
open web material. Is this an app preference, or a web preference? Finally,
there were some interesting findings on how users find websites, with online
search understandably scoring highly 54%, word of mouth 29% and social media
26%.
However, the interesting question all
is raises is on how we develop the user interface for tomorrow? We have an
abundance of technology, applications, mobile technology and stakeholders. The
question is how do we deploy this and maintain control, auditability and yet
serve those both within and outside the organisation? Yesterday we built ERP
empires that tried to encompass all users, all needs and all to one database, using
one technology and one presentation. They worked for the internal user but
lacked the external user interface and presentation. Importantly they tried to
handle everything transactional, media and stuff and although business to
business activity worked well they often failed to deliver to an ever growing
consumer interface need.
In many ways we now have a very diverse
repository of information, transactions, content and context and stuff which we
can liken to a house. We all look through different windows into the house we
see different things according to the window we look through. The kitchen
window will be different to the bedroom and that will be different to the
bathroom and so on. Same house different perspectives. The trick is that we
have just capture and process stuff once and store it once but use it many
different ways.
Yesterday we viewed a prototype app
for a new service yet to be launched and were taken aback, not because it did
something we didn’t expect, but because it presented it in a way we had never
expected and one that broke the shackles of the old transactional application screens
and the web ones too! We remember when we developed a new elibrary in 2006 and
were impressed with how Adobe had presented their Digital Editions offer and
adopted a similar look. How dated that now appears and this is not because of
the web, but because of the demanding new mobile world, devices and the emergence
of the app.
The greatest challenge is not
segmenting the different presentation needs, or ensuring that the centre serves
all, but in segmenting the activities and views and deciding which takes precedent
over the other. Does the dog wag the tail, or the tail the dog? Do developers
share, or need to share common ground across all presentations? Do we deal with
the transactional activity separate to the other activity? Do we build lots of
apps, or one app with potentially many children? Do we build the app then worry
about the other stuff. Or build the internal view then worry about the external
one? Does the app presentation now impact and influence the other
presentations? Have we gone past rows and columns and want animation and
graphics?
What is clear is that what we see
today will be presented differently tomorrow and therefore the investment may
have to be repeated as the environment in which it lives evolves.
The smartphone is now starting to impact what we see, access
and how we do things and this will surely now drive development and refine the
balance between web and app access but app design will drive web design moving
forward.
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