Stage One: Mobile Compatible
A stage one mobile effort is usually a web site that ‘works’ on mobile devices. By this I mean a design that will load, and can be navigated on a mobile device. But the experience is still frustrating - limited size of navigation elements, content organized in such a way that text isn’t readable, etc. These products aren’t really ‘mobile’ yet. They’ve just moved towards upcoming web standards (HTML5 over flash, etc).
Stage Two: Mobile Version
This is a focused mobile product, but really just a re-working or trimmed down version of the initial content. If there’s a mobile site that is basically re-organized and simplified pages, this isn’t an ideal user experience. It has been re-purposed for the smaller screen, but not designed for it from the ground up.
Stage Three: Specific Mobile Experience
Mobile apps and web apps most often fall into this category. The Tumblr mobile app is an example of this, building a fairly full-featured version of the overall experience that takes advantages of the device, allowing most post types, and some account management - this is a full product, but there are inherent limitations to what can and can’t be done. The difference, of course, is that these are decisions, rather than accidental omissions.
Stage Four: Complete Mobile Experience
A complete mobile experience, at this point, is almost always a mobile-first experience. Even the most well developed mobile apps that started as websites are lacking key features (for instance, try fixing your Facebook account settings through the iOS app). Whereas, something like (current industry hot topic) Instagram offers a truly complete experience on mobile - because mobile HAD to be a complete experience for the product to catch on.
More:
The reason I wrote all of this out, is to try to sketch a framework for what a complete mobile experience for an existing web product would be like. For instance, you would need complete control over account / profile settings, editing abilities, some kind of CMS, and many other tools that are often glossed over when it comes to a mobile device.
Over the past few years mobile has become my first AND second screen. My iPhone and iPad outrank my laptop in terms of non-professional use. And the fact that I’m still seeing posts and emails with ‘please excuse the lack of links, I wrote this on my iPhone’ tells me we haven’t hit a point of complete mobile experience on very much, yet.
This is insane. The more likes given, the less clothes on the model. What is the value of a like? What is that going to do for the brand?
(via Facebook Campaign Gone Too Far? Model Strips for Likes)
Isn’t this the exact same idea as the recent Perrier Le Club campaign? But more direct / honest?
I don’t know if it’s too far, but it isn’t (significantly) offensive, after going through the first stage of the app.
This is what the internet is like sometimes, if you live in Canada.
(Same deal for Hulu, turntable.fm, etc)
Pre-internet licensing and copyright terms don’t work in an internet age. Dividing content by location (usually in support of either re-selling or price fixing) breaks the internet experience, because you end up with either massive disparity in what is available, and to whom, or massive (and visible) disparity in pricing).
The number one reason (anecdotally) that people pirate content isn’t a desire to avoid paying money. It’s frustration.
And beyond release windows, and DRM / device locking, and region coding, and other anti-user technologies, one of the biggest reasons people in my specific nation pirate content is a blatant refusal to allow us to access it otherwise.
The end result of this isn’t piracy. It’s the creation of a culture that doesn’t have any experience with your product as part of a business. Someone who pirates music from 13 is going to start paying for music eventually - but they won’t be paying for music. They’ll be paying for speed, and ease, and saving storage space on their hard drive.
And that’s only if you’ll let them.
“Unfortunately everything about Facebook defies logic. In terms of user experience (insider jargon: “UX”), Facebook is like an NYPD police van crashing into an IKEA, forever — a chaotic mess of products designed to burrow into every facet of your life” — This article is composed entirely of pull quotes.
So, earlier today, I tweeted the following:
FYI: I have never heard anyone who wasn’t middle class (or better off) say ‘If you don’t love your job, why do you have it?’
— Jon Crowley (@joncrowley) April 10, 2012
Unsurprisingly, instead of reacting to the actual content of my message, people assumed I am a mean, negative individual devoid of hope.
I thought I was making a pretty clear statement: that insisting that you shouldn’t be working in any job you don’t love is a clear indication of privilege. And this really shouldn’t be up for debate: if you can actually make that statement without considering that many people need to work to do things like care for loved ones, or cover the necessities of food and shelter, that’s mildly disturbing.
But the issue that people took wasn’t my indication that this sentiment implied economic privilege. People instead got angry that I was suggesting people should do things they hate. That people should take jobs that they aren’t excited about.
I realized at this point, I was breaking a carefully agreed upon modern myth - that anything is possible if you try hard enough, therefore you should never settle.
Notice that at no point did I say that people shouldn’t strive for what they want. I just said the idea that getting what you want will never require doing things you don’t love, is moronic.
Doing something you don’t love, that gets you closer to what you DO love, isn’t quitting or settling. It’s called being an adult.
Having dreams and goals is important. It’s why my Grandparents gave up relatively successful lives in Jamaica as landowners to work low paying, low expertise jobs in Canada - to provide a better future for their children and grandchildren.
I can guarantee, at no point did my Grandfather love sweeping up at a car dealership more than he loved being a farmer - I saw this every time he would tend a small garden, or weed the backyard while visiting my family home.
But LOVE has nothing to do with need. And it doesn’t necessarily indicate talent or ambition.
Finding a career you love is a goal. It’s a blessing. It’s an achievement. But it isn’t something you’re entitled to, especially not for your entire working life.
If there’s nothing more important in your life than loving your work, I’m willing to bet there’s something missing from your life.
Gregg Fraley | If Steve Jobs Worked For You, You’d Probably Fire Him -
This, by the way, is a quality I lack. I understand how hard it is to change things, and when it’s unlikely.
This likely keeps me from being a revolutionary.
> The Candle Problem was first presented by Karl Duncker. Published posthumously in 1945, “On problem solving” describes how Duncker provided subjects with a candle, some matches, and a box of tacks. He told each subject to affix the candle to a cork board wall in such a way that when lit, the candle won’t drip wax on the table below (see figure at right). Can you think of the answer?
This doesn’t shock me. Creativity is not about efficiency.
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I have a habit of saying “this isn’t the wild west anymore”. By this, I mean that digital and social and mobile are no longer a sea of unknown unknowns. We have an understanding of the rules, and we need to be better.
I realized recently that this saying is useless. This IS the wild west. And I realized that it was still the wild west while thinking about working in one of the most regulated areas of marketing.
Think for a second about a western you’ve seen. They aren’t lawless, even if the title of the movie tries to indicate it is. There is law, it’s just not optimized to the territory.
Let me restate that, because it perfectly describes digital marketing: we know what the rules and laws are. But they haven’t been designed for the territory they are now forced to govern.
The wild west doesn’t mean a vast, lawless exploration. It means the grey area that comes from expanding into a new frontier.
We’re waiting for the law, and the infrastructure to catch up. And we’re trying to make today work, because the frontier won’t be around long enough to influence the law meaningfully if we don’t.