Responsive Web Design and Mobile Context
There is an active, and very interesting, debate taking place right now in the web community about the merits of responsive web design—particularly how it applies to mobile. On one side of the fence you have the “one web” group who believe that you should be delivering the same content to both mobile and desktop users, typically anchored by a responsive approach. On the other side of the fence are people who believe that mobile requires much more than responsive design is capable of and therefore write the technique off as little more than a band-aid on a gunshot wound.
The primary issue that those opposed to the one web approach tend to mention is that responsive web design ignores the mobile context. This, of course, broaches the question: What exactly is the mobile context? The answer is not particularly clear.
It used to be. The mobile user used to be always on the go; trying to consume location related and task-oriented content very quickly. The problem is that this is not necessarily the case anymore. Phones are getting more and more capable and the browsing experience on many of them can be downright enjoyable. That has resulted in more people partaking in casual browsing on their mobile devices. Jeremy Keith hits it on the head in his comment to Paul Boag’s thought provoking post:
There’s also this assumption that mobile users have just one context (“I’m in a hurry! I need to find a time or a location!”) while desktop users have another (“I’ve got all the time in the world; I don’t mind wading through a bunch of irrelevant crap”) whereas, as Stephanie rightly pointed out—and I believe Luke Wroblewski is also doing user research in this area—this simply isn’t true.
People will use their Android phones or iPod Touches over WiFi while they are lounging on the sofa and people will use their laptops over 3G while traveling on a train.
Now tell me: which is the mobile context?
The issue is that there is no longer a clear mobile context. The stats seem to support this fact. Luke Wroblewski posted a summary of stats taken from Compete’s Quarterly Smartphone Report that pertained to where people are using their mobile devices to access the internet. The results were varied:
- 84% at home
- 80% during miscellaneous downtime throughout the day
- 76% waiting in lines of waiting for appointments
- 69% while shopping
- 64% at work
- 62% while watching TV (alt. study claims 84%)
- 47% during commute in to work
One could argue that a few of these settings might lean towards our traditional view of the mobile context. I’m willing to bet that a large portion of the 69% of the people browsing the web while shopping are looking for information to help them make their purchase, perform price comparisons etc. Take a look at those top two results though—those aren’t your traditional scenarios of mobile use.
Let me be clear—I’m not saying that there is never a need to tailor the content of a mobile site. I’m also not saying that responsive design and one web is an end all be all for mobile. It’s not a black and white issue—there are many, many shades of gray. We shouldn’t ignore the unique needs and characteristics of mobile devices and their users—it would be irresponsible to do so. However, we should be very careful not to assume too much. Mobile context is important, but first we need to figure out what the heck it is.
Responsive design is just one piece of the puzzle. By itself it is, in many cases, an incomplete solution. It’s a tool, however, that when leveraged properly and in conjunction with the proper techniques (see http://yiibu.com for an example of what I mean) can greatly aid in optimizing for multiple devices. To assume it is the entire solution is a mistake; to discount it as a hack seems to me to be just as bad.
13 Smart Things Were Said
You beat me to writing about this. I plan on writing a longer post soon, but a couple of quick thoughts:
1. The main objection seems to be that we shouldn’t make assumptions about the context and use that information to hide functionality. At the same time, I would argue that we shouldn’t ignore what we likely know about a person’s context when it can be used to provide a better experience so long as we either ask them up front or give them the option of ignoring the decisions we’ve made based on the context.
When the iPad first came out, ESPN introduced a special web page when people hit their site. It said in essence, “Hey, we see you’re on an iPad. Would you like the mobile version of the site or the desktop version?”
Similarly, if you’re a museum and someone accesses your geolocation-enabled site from inside your museum, should you ignore that context and deliver the same content in the same ordering that you do on desktop? Or should you highlight the information someone will need like tours, maps, etc. and give the person the option of seeing the other content that is at the front on the desktop site (tickets, planning your trip, etc).
I believe we can give people a better experience if we consider context, but we shouldn’t assume the context without giving choice in some way.
2. I hate the fact that “one web” is being used inaccurately to describe the W3C’s One Web best practice. It is selective reading of that document—ignoring Thematic Consistency—to conclude that “one web” or Team Timbo mean single html documents for all devices. I feel like screaming, “It doesn’t mean what you think it means!” Argh.
@Jason – You may have prompted another blog post as my response is getting quite lengthy. :) I’ll give the abbreviated version.
In response to your first point, I am all for enhancing the experience when it makes sense (your museum scenario is a great example). The key is to do so while not alienating the recreational user and without disorienting those users who are familiar with the desktop version of the site. ESPN is a good example of the issue here—go to the mobile site and try to find the ‘Top Stories’. On the desktop, they’re front and center. On the mobile site, they are nowhere to be seen.
I also agree that a choice should be offered, but I think too many companies right now are using the choice of a desktop version as a sort of ‘get out jail free’ card. If the choice is between a mobile site that the user doesn’t feel comfortable with and a desktop version that is certainly not optimized for a small screen, then neither option is going to serve the user very well.
Oooo —I hope it didn’t come across that I believe that’s what their best practices boils down to (W3C’s One Web recommendation does make it pretty clear that the information itself, let alone the design, that is served up on a page does not have to be exactly the same across all devices and contexts). I used the term because it is the phrase that many people in that camp have kind of adopted as their slogan so it was an easy way to refer to the one HTML document belief.
Looking forward to your post on the topic.
@tim I was fairly certain you didn’t have that definition of One Web. But it’s been bugging me again since late last week when I was tweeting about it be a rorschach test for web developers. For whatever reason, I couldn’t stop from ranting a bit about it.
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