The mobile device boom has promised traditional and digital publishers a new road to revenue, but amongst all the hype, actionable solutions aren’t always obvious.  Some questions to be answered include:

1. What technology platforms should I use?
2. What tools enable mobile advertising success?
3. How can I manage mobile subscriptions?

Where does user experience happen?  It starts with understanding and identifying the core business issues, and then targeting possible solutions and planning.  By creating designs that resolve the business issues and developing functional code based on those designs, the planning phase is the most critical.  User experience is a focus, a thread that runs through all of our disciplines here at Bottle Rocket Apps.  No particular practice area owns or controls UX and the total user experience encompasses words like “useful,” “desirable,” “usable,” “findable,” “credible,” valuable,” and “accessible.”  No matter how brilliant your designs, if the content is bad, the honeycomb crumbles. (The User Experience Honeycomb – Peter Morville, 2004)

So, where does content strategy fit in?  By having a corporate brand strategy and style guide, brand supporting content comes from message maps and content production schedules.  User experience strategy drives happy path flows, storyboards, wireframes and the ultimate content that the user experiences.  Content strategy plans for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.

While content strategy isn’t a part of user experience strategy, when designing for mobile devices, the simple form factor difference of smaller screens may need content to be sliced and diced in different and flexible ways. Very few companies have a solid understanding of how to leverage their content it across multiple channels and platforms.  Content heavy companies that have text for print, video for television, mixed content for web, etc.  Most likely they have some a unique content management system for each. Each will need to come together for delivery on devices like the iPad, which seems to be the digital convergence we have been waiting for.

We were born to move around and mobile is freeing humanity from the ball and chain that is the PC.  Here’s a brief history and how far we’ve come:

• In 2006, near 100% of mobile use was voice/phone, email, and text. Now, only 42% of mobile is voice, email or text.
• In 2007, the iPhone was born with the Webkit browser and advertisers began dabbling in a new medium.
• 2008 brought the birth of the Apple iTunes store and the mobile app economy is transformed.
• In 2009, Android emerges and we have numerous platforms and options again.
• 2010, iPad ushers in beginning of “post-PC” era.
• So far in 2011, investments in mobile, smartphones and even mobile connected appliances are now “smart” devices. 31% of Americans currently own a smartphone.
• By the end of 2011, more Americans will have smartphones than feature phones.  Today, 3.6 billion people around the world have a mobile phone. with 91% of Americans using mobile phones.

Now, and every day, a new use for mobile is born.  Facebook, Angry Birds, Pandora, Words with Friends… the device is less and less a phone every day.  Engagement now trumps utility.

• Microsoft Tag and QR code usage grew nearly 300% in 2011, and they now appear in 62% of top U. S. magazine titles.
• 78% of smartphone owners use their devices while they shop.
• 100M Android devices were activated as of May 2011.
• 200M+ YouTube mobile views per day.
• 680M+ active Facebook members; over 1/3 use Facebook mobile.
• 50% of total active Twitter users are on mobile; 40% of all tweets come from mobile.
• 17.7B app downloads projected for 2011.
• 86% use their mobile devices while they watch TV.
• 25M iPads sold to date:  87,000 per day, and almost 8M for Q2 2011 alone vs. 14.8M sold in all of 2010.

Looking forward, 2014 will be the year that mobile becomes the most common way of accessing the Internet.  Welcome to the “Post-PC Era.”  However, don’t let the name “Post-PC” imply that we will all show up to work one day, overturn our desks in celebration, and go on with our days squinting at tiny hand-held screens.  That’s not the future we mean… PCs are important for getting work done.  We still need them, and mobile devices won’t replace PCs, but they will exponentially expand the reach of technology into our physical world with new-found utility and meaning.

Three behavioral trends of the mobile experience:

1. Convenience:  Transform culture and business by helping people get things done more easily and with tangible value.
2. Context:  Curate and deliver relevant information when you need it.  Location services are continuing to grow.  So, how do you monetize this growth?  Show people the TIME of their life!
3. Fun:  With mobile, fun in unexpected places will expand in imaginative and meaningful ways and will be more frequently integrated into our lives.

“One of the most important technology trends over the next 3-5 years will be the effort to embed the dynamics of networked gaming into everyday life.” ~~ Edward Castranova, Economist

Do users turn a blind eye to mobile design if they really love the brand?  According to a EffectiveUI study, no.  The majority of users chose superior experience design over brand loyalty.  To survive and thrive in the ever-increasing app landscape, companies must maintain a relentless focus on their unique brand attributes, and deliver an experience that passes the “who cares?” test.  Apps with high usability and sales:

1.  Communicate value in an emotionally engaging way:  functionality should reinforce a company’s brand positioning and be consistent with how the business presents itself in other media.

2.  Deliver value by offering useful, usable function:  sites that don’t support consumer goals frustrate and annoy visitors, and those negative emotions transfer over to the brand.

3.  The apparent failing of application design in part due to an added pressure from the C-suite to simply have a mobile app:  some apps are simply not necessary, and while first-adopters might purchase them, word-of-mouth spreads quickly and sales will fall off drastically (along with brand reputation).

4.  Users will not tolerate apps that are slow to open or operate:  speed is even more important for apps than it is for web sites.

5.  Users are more likely to download an app based on recommendations:  companies will have to push the envelope and go farther afield to enlighten, engage, and differentiate to garner those coveted recommendations.

CONCLUSION?  User expectations define the user experience.  “Don’t beat me over the head with a useless app, and don’t waste your time trying to ‘sell’ me on why I need it,” is clearly the message from users to brands looking to connect on mobile devices.

“Yes, recommendations from others do matter, so don’t try to skate by with mediocre design.” According to a new survey from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 35% of adults have cell phones with apps, but only two-thirds of those who have apps actually use them.  Rather than concluding that app adoption is low, we would propose that unused apps simply are not delivering value, utility, usability or a meaningful experience to the user.

While every article we read and metric we watch shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population, what we’re seeing in the app story is the early stages of the classic tech adoption story.  Agencies interested in developing apps should recognize that app purchase and use, for now, is contained to a core group of cell phone users (18- to 29-year-olds make up half of all adult app users).  But, that will surely change in the future, with many in the tech industry hailing apps as “the new revolution.”