Responding to the challenge of the mobile web (2012)

Responding to the challenge
of the mobile web
Graham Bird

Contents
• Before we start
• A quick history lesson
• Fast forward to today
• What about our site?
• Looking forwards

Why mobile?
Engagement through mobile is one of
the guiding principles defined in
Operation Partridge (Online Capabilities)
Before we start

By 2013 mobile phones will overtake
PCs as the most common web access
device worldwide
Gartner, Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1278413
Before we start
Why now?

The mobile cliché
• Poor connection speed
• Tiny audience
• Lots of distractions
• Tiny screen size
• Requires dedicated mobile site
• On the go (short attention span)
• One handed interaction
• Tedious to type on numeric
keypads
Photo by Oimax
A quick history lesson

The cliché applied in 1999...
• Very slow connection speed
• Extortionate data plans
• Hardly any compatible sites
• Mobile sites very stripped down
• Tiny screens
• Typing URLs on numeric keypad
• Difficult to use wheel/joystick
= geeks/masochists only

29 June 2007...iPhone arrives
• Tiny screens

29 June 2007...iPhone arrives
• Tiny screens
+ Apple marketing
+ widespread PR coverage

It’s not all Apple
Fast forward to today
Figures from statcounter.com for August 2011

Many screen sizes
Even the Kindle
has a browser

89% of smartphone owners use their
mobile device at home
Nielsen/Yahoo
http://advertising.yahoo.com/industry-knowledge/mobile-shopping-insight.html
Variable connection speed

Variable connection speed
Mobile devices
have overtaken
laptops for Wi-Fi
hotspot usage
GigaOM
http://gigaom.com/2011/06/21/mobile-devices-overtake-computers-on-wi-fi-networks/
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
90.00%
100.00%
2010 2011

Portable, but not always moving
86% use their mobile device while at
home watching the TV
Nielsen/Yahoo

People expect mobile support
Nearly half of mobile web users are
unlikely to return to a website that they
had trouble accessing from their phone,
and 57% are unlikely to recommend the
site
Compuware, New Study Reveals the Mobile Web Disappoints Global Consumers
http://investor.compuware.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=592528

34% visit a site on their PC and then
follow up on mobile
Nielsen/Yahoo

70% of smartphone owners choose to
find information via the browser instead
of apps
Orange
http://www.unanimis.co.uk/orange-mobile-exposure-2010/

And they’re active users
People that use Facebook on their
mobile devices are twice as active on
Facebook than non-mobile users.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Mobile web design today
• Don’t assume bandwidth

• Don’t assume user intent

• Don’t design for specific screen sizes

• Do provide large touch targets

• Do take advantage of new capabilities

• Do take advantage of new capabilities
• Don’t use Flash (or other plugins)

The 1% rule
The Big Garden Birdwatch survey form
(and by implication, the rest of the website)
should support any browser that
exceeds 1% of traffic to our website
What about our site?

0
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5
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7
8
9
10
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Jan 2008 Jan 2009 Jan 2010 Jan 2011 Jan 2012
Graph shows combined iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry and Nokia traffic to the RSPB website
RSPB website
% of
all traffic

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1
2
3
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7
8
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Jan 2008 Jan 2009 Jan 2010 Jan 2011 Dec 2011
Graph shows combined iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry and Nokia traffic to the RSPB website
RSPB website
% of
all traffic

What’s popular on mobile?
• 11% of Bird identifier traffic
• 11% of Bird guide traffic
• 9% of Community traffic
• 9% of Feed the Birds day traffic
• 6.5% of Join traffic
• 6% of Reserves traffic (8.5% on find page)
• 0.3% of landing page traffic (2,500 people)
Figures from October 2011

To provide the complete RSPB website
to the widest range of mobile devices with
little or no additional maintenance effort
What is our ambition?
Looking forwards

Help us achieve it
Looking forwards
• Bring mobile into the web strategy
• Support standardisation of the website
• Give us time to redesign the site
• Give us devices to test on

• A mobile-friendly site
Looking forwards
What are the benefits?

• Better user experience
Looking forwards

• Better search rankings
Looking forwards

• Web Team more agile
Looking forwards

• Increased robustness across desktop browsers as
well as mobile
Looking forwards

• Increased robustness across desktop browsers as
well as mobile
• Continuous improvement across the site
Looking forwards

Including mobile in the strategy
Looking forwards
We need to recognise that mobile is here to
stay and ensure that the needs of the mobile
audience are part and parcel of our web
strategy

Standardising the site
Looking forwards
• Identify gaps in functionality
• Create a toolkit of reusable modular elements
• Tested on desktop and mobile
• Consistent behaviour across site
• Less code to maintain
• Quicker to build new sections
• Quicker to roll out updates
• No page left behind

Perceived downsides
of standardisation
Looking forwards
• Templates are seen as restrictive, limiting, dull
• Limited scope to reproduce print materials is
seen as a bad thing
• There is a desire from customers to make their
mark (“I want my thing to be different from
everything else”)
• Novelty is seen as inherently good (“change for
change’s sake”)
• Personal opinions are given too much weight

Don’t fear the template
A brief interlude
• Templates can still be
beautiful & flexible
• We have one website, not
many
• Consistency is very
important
• If we weren’t doing bespoke
work all the time, we could
improve the core template
for everyone

Who else uses templates?
A brief interlude
BBC Online is heavily templated and strictly
controlled by visual guidelines

Let’s compare web budgets
A brief interlude
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
90,000,000
100,000,000
BBC RSPB
Optimistic

Let’s compare web budgets
A brief interlude
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
90,000,000
100,000,000
BBC RSPB
Using templates well Trying not to

Standardisation is good
Looking forwards
• Consistency is a “first principle” of interaction
design – it breeds familiarity, confidence and
trust
• Feels professional and thought through
• User is more able to focus on task at hand
• Website is faster
• Reduced time to build and to maintain
• New functionality is created once and can be
used anywhere

Redesign
Looking forwards
• A new site that adapts to the device being used,
providing optimum design & usability for all
• Future-proof
• Best practice
• Optimised for poor connection speeds
• Consistent user experience

Redesign
Looking forwards
• A new site that adapts to the device being used,
providing optimum design & usability for all
• Future-proof Future-friendly
• Best practice
• Optimised for poor connection speeds
• Consistent user experience

Testing
Looking forwards
• Wi-Fi in the Web Team area
• Access to internal test servers and internet
• 1 x iPad 2
• 1 x iPhone 4
• 1 x Android phone
• 1 x Blackberry 6 phone
• 1 x Blackberry 5 phone

Thank you
Remember...not every mobile device will have an
RSPB app on it but every mobile device can access
the RSPB website

Responding to the challenge of the mobile web (2012)

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