HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
features they have. This might sound like copying, but it will help users to
quickly and intuitively figure out how to use your application based on their
previous experiences and, thus, get it up and running in the least amount of
time.
It is important to remember that you can build on top of these rules and you do
not have to stick to them. As long as you can get your users to open your
mobile web application, play with it for several minutes, and immediately say ''I
get it,'' you have done your job.
There are many categories for mobile web applications, but most of them will fall
under the following.
Task based
Social
Entertainment
Task Based
Task-based applications are quite simple in their nature. They are built as time
savers for everyday use. This can be anything from finding train times to finding
out where the closest pub or bar is.
There are times when I have stood in the middle of the London Waterloo train
station staring at train time boards, looking dazed and confused, only to whip
out my handset to launch the Train Times app to find train times quicker.
The important thing to remember is that if a user cannot perform a task in the
least amount of time with your application, they will close your browser window
and find another that can perform the same task much quicker.
For task-based applications, there are two basic pieces of information you can
use to help a user perform a task faster.
Where is the user?
What device are they using?
These two key pieces of information are readily available to your application and
knowing them will make all the difference.
Finding out the physical location of the user and what they are doing will help
you to preempt what the user is going to do when they go to your mobile web
application.
