Mobile Websites vs. Mobile Apps FAQs: Part 2

Today we're continuing last week's discussion of mobile websites and mobile apps, focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Since we have already established that mobile websites and mobile apps can be designed to behave similarly, why might a person lean one way or the other in terms of deciding which to build? Let's compare...

Mobile App Advantages

• Mobile apps are Native Apps, meaning they are built for your device, installed on your device, and are most likely to work seamlessly with your device.
• Mobile apps can more readily utilize all the "native features" of your device, such as your phone's camera. (Although  support for these types of things in web apps is growing.)
• Mobile apps can be sold or distributed on a devices distribution portal—for example, the Apple iOS App Store. For many, these portals are the preferred means of acquiring apps for their devices.
• Some mobile apps can work without an Internet connection.
• Mobile apps tend to perform slightly faster.

Mobile App Disadvantages

• Mobile apps tend to be costlier to build and can sometimes cost significantly more than a web app.
• Mobile apps are not cross-platform. A mobile app built for an iPhone will not run on an Android or Blackberry. So, if you wish to provide apps to your patrons and customers who have these devices, you will have to build and maintain separate apps, and this will certainly add to costs that already are most likely more significant when compared to a web app.
• While mobile apps offer the benefit of being put in, say, the Apple iOS App Store, there are restrictions and significant quality-demands that can make the approval processes lengthy and involved.
• A version update to a mobile app will require a new update and installation, which the patron must initiate. There's no way to ensure that a customer will be using the most updated version of the app.

Web App Advantages

• Web apps tend to be cheaper to build.
• Web apps are cross-platform. One web app can accommodate all your iPhone, Android, and Blackberry customers, and, in fact, it will work on any smartphone or tablet with a web browser.
• There's no approval process. When you feel you're app is ready, you can start offering it to the public.
• Updates are easy. The app user doesn't need to download anything new, and updates don't need to be approved by a store before being distributed.
• Updates are also done without being initiated by the user; so all your users are always using the same, most recent version of your app.
• Support for new technologies in HTML5, CSS3, and platforms such as JQuery Mobile are continuing to grow, which offers increasing use of a device's native features.

Web App Disadvantages

• Web apps can't be distributed at the iOS App Store, nor at other similar portals.
• Establishing a paid app (as opposed to a free one) may involve a more difficult build process since you'll essentially have to build your own "walls," payment gateways, or subscription services.
• Web apps require an Internet connection (WIFI or phone-based, such as a G3 or G4 connection) to run.
• Although the devices are cross-platform, they may behave slightly different from device-type to device-type depending on unique browser quirks.

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Next week, in Part 3 of this series, we'll sort through what we've learned so far and help you determine whether a mobile app or a web app is the better approach for you or your company.

Interactive Marketing Gains Legitimacy

A recent Forrester Research report predicts that by 2016, U.S. Advertisers will spend $77 billion on interactive marketing— the same amount that advertisers are spending on television advertising today. Advertisers will devote over 35% of their advertising dollars to search marketing, Internet display advertising, mobile and email marketing, and social media.

Marketers will invest more in interactive marketing campaigns because the believe that they will generate better results than traditional advertising over time. Kathleen Sullivan, Vice President of Marketing for Visionary, explains: "Advertisers will devote more resources to interactive marketing campaigns because they can measure the results."There are metrics for nearly every type of digital campaign, and even small businesses can easily monitor their ROI and break it down by categories and channels.

Not so for traditional print media. 

Analyzing the precise reach and ROI of traditional media has proven to be elusive. Response rates are measurable, and subscription numbers help fill in the blanks, but it’s impossible to tell exactly how many prospects open or read print media.

Statistics released by Kantar Media, the leading provider of strategic advertising and marketing information, showed ad expenditures for newspapers and magazines during thefourth quarter declined. Experts suggest this reduction is in part due to the re-allocation of ad dollars to other advertising channels, including digital.

"It's prudent to diversify most marketing with a healthy dose of interactive, in combination with some traditional," Sullivan added. "As always, marketers should keep an eye on the demographics and activities of their respective target markets for best results."

Mobile Websites vs. Mobile Apps FAQs: Part 1

There's no doubt about it: it's a mobile world these days. Folks are getting away from their desktops and even their laptops and accessing more content than ever through tablets and mobile phones. The jury is no longer out on this assertion, and we can be relatively confident that this trend will continue to grow.

When you're ready to create a presence that is more geared towards mobile users, a question that may come up is, "Should I build a mobile website or a mobile app?" This series will help get you up to speed on the most fundamental concepts when it comes to comparing the two choices.

Today, we start by asking this question:

What are the Differences Between Mobile Websites and Mobile Apps?

A mobile website can be built to behave much like a mobile app, and vice versa. And although mobile websites are viewed through a phone or tablet's browser, icons can be added to home screens that make them behave even more like native apps. So the differences between the two application types are sometimes not that easy to discern.

A mobile website is built using the same technology as other websites (typically being built with HTML, CSS, and Javascript), and is rendered through mobile browsers. Like all websites, they function across multiple platforms. The same mobile website can reach customers and patrons who are using iPhones, Blackberries, Androids, etc.

Where a mobile website differs from a traditional website involves the presentation. Mobile websites are designed to be best viewed and interacted with on a small screen, such as those found on mobile phones. They also tend to "perform" more like native apps, often replicating the look and interactivity that would be familiar to, for example, an iPhone user.

Conversely, a mobile app is not a website, but an actual piece of software that is downloaded and installed on a user's device. Some of these apps function entirely "self-contained" where an Internet connection is not required. Other apps do, like the mobile website, pull information from the web, which may be necessary, depending on the nature of your content. 

Mobile apps can also be uploaded and distributed for free (or for a price, if desired) to device-specific distribution hubs, such as Apple's iOS App Store or Google's Android Market.

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So, in summary, mobile websites and mobile apps can be designed to behave similarly and, often the difference may be indiscernible to the user, but they are two different animals, particularly with respect to how they're built and accessed.

Next week, in Part 2 of this series, we'll look into what some of the advantages and disadvantages are to each.

Mobile Websites: The Time Has Come…

If you think you can put off designing a mobile website for yet another year, think again.

In 2011, there were 835 million smartphone users and 5.6 billion feature phone users.

By 2015, global Internet usage will more than double - and most of these users will be mobile.

Any mobile website development should include the following considerations:

• When people access sites using mobile devices, their measured usability is much higher for mobile sites than for full sites.
• Consider a mobile app in place of a full mobile website for cost-effectiveness.
• If mobile users arrive at your full site's URL, provide a re-direction to your mobile site. Some search engines still don't rank mobile sites favorably enough for mobile users, so users unwittingly arrive at a full site.
• Or, offer a distinct link from your full site to your mobile website (or app) for those mobile users who may be directed to your full site.
• Similarly, offer a link from your mobile website to your full website for those few users who require special features only available on the full site.

Usability: An Ongoing Part of the Website Design Process

A website is intuitive only if it behaves in a predictable manner, and it can only do that if the designer of your website anticipates what assumptions site visitors will make about how your website functions.

The good news is that visitors already have helpful expectations of how your website functions. They will expect a mouse click to take them to information they are looking for, they will expect icons they've seen on other sites to behave in a similar fashion on your site.

Here are a few important things to consider to make your site more user-friendly:

Remove Obstacles
Allow site visitors to directly interact with content and provide "express routes" to additional information they are looking for.

Minimize Effort
You can make life easier for visitors to your website by keeping related links close together and by placing frequently used links in a prominent position on your page.

Be Explicit
Make content on your site that is clickable obvious to the visitor and try and use conventional names for  navigational elements. If you cannot think of a better way to say "About Us" then don't even try. These types of conventions work because people are familiar with them.

Be Flexible
Visitors will expect you to provide shortcuts to content so they can skip the information that is not of interest to them. If you have video or sound on your site, make it easy to quit or shut off. People want to feel like they are in control when they are surfing the web, so allow them to make their own choices.

Be Forgiving
Most visitors to your site do not choose the best option, they choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing. While visitors often play the guessing game when searching for information, don't make it difficult for them if they change their minds, use breadcrumbs and/or omnipresent navigation to allow them to find their way around your site.

Usability is not a step in the website design process—it's not something you do only once and never think about it again. It's an ongoing part of the design process.