Delivering Content via Mobile

Editor's Notes

• #3: Back in the mid to late 90’s working at web design agencies meant on a weekly basis we received phone calls asking can we do web sites – we said yes sure we can do that. We followed this up with questions about who the audience was, the messaging that needed to be incorporated – the reason why the site was needed – the answer it didn’t matter, our MD / COO wants one … and … by next week!Not long ago mobile was about just being available on mobile devices.Now that requirement has very rapidly become the demand to be available on all mobile devices, the UI needs to follow our brand guidelines that were developed for our website.Whilst working with NI, 3 years ago mobile was managed from a cupboard by a junior PM, 18 months ago Rupert Murdock was involved on a regular basis.
• #4: websites today are very complex, having many demands from across your business and importantly high demands from your audience.
• #5: For those that do have a current project…Q - Is mobile a requirement, is it the reason for the project or just a nice to have?But does that really mean an App?Those looking at mobile web have the best chance of success, but you need to manage the expectations.And how is mobile being accounted for?
• #6: Lets consider your overall digital budget.This is all hypothetical - The actual amount does not matter…
• #7: Now to continue your current digital activity takes this percentage…
• #8: To deliver the new business requirements via the website will cost this…
• #9: We have this amount ear marked for mobile apps…
• #10: So that leaves this much for mobile web…Oh!
• #11: As I spoke of earlier mobile has rapidly become very important with high demands and equally high expectations.SO naturally the next question is how do we get the most bang for our buck.If we were to loose the term mobile from all of this then quite a bit of the problem goes away.
• #12: 1st Practice – don’t formulate a strategy – it will be out of date before the inks dry.By removing the term mobile we remove the classic need to ‘formulate a strategy’ for that.Instead ask yourself three questions
• #13: Answer to number one isyes for all of youNumber two – it dependsYES if you manage tasks or do something other than delivering contentNO if like many of you – you are about content and publishing informationThree – you’ll need to working on optimizing what you already have and importantly what you already know your users demand.Answering these three questions makes mobile a tactic not a strategy – do you form a strategy for each new browser release?
• #14: By answering the previous 3 questions, in many cases this means just doing things.Why, well becauseDesigning mobile using traditional design methods proves costly. You’ll end up having to sign off many ‘versions’ of the same page to cater for all the variations in screen size and orientation. To over come this means prototyping as soon as possiblePrototyping is great as it creates a share understanding across your team and provides a reality check on those high expectations whilst at the same times offers a live platform to test your content within a mobile context.At Media Pro about a month ago…Belron (Auto glass) just try things, lots of the things fail but the 10% that does work works really well – their mobile offering made a ROI in under 1 week with little or no marketing.Compare to The Good Pub Guide – who have made a few apps and talk a lot about what they ‘might do’ in the future and they’ve a lot of competition already for pub reviews, like many niche publishers individuals can steal your audience.
• #15: Strategy and Insight are different.I’ve suggested that strategizing is an expensive path to follow for delivering to mobile with the budgetary constraints that we often see when talking to clients.However the insight that analytics can give is invaluable when understanding what your users and customers already expect access to and therefore where you need to focus any initial effortMost of you will have analytics installed on your site. Most are probably running analytics on the client side e.g. Google analytics that rely on JavaScript. Some will be using server side analytics2nd Practice – use a service side analytics service to capture mobile usageYou’re the lucky ones you’ve most probably got the ability to understand true mobile device usage as many mobile devices can’t run the JavaScript analytics relies upon.We see that once mobile specific analytical tools a truer picture of mobile usage is seen – all additional unique users are a good thing for nearly all site so it’s worth considering to capture that extra few % of unique users you probably have.The proliferation of JavaScript used across all those Web2.0 features you’ve added may not work for this Mobile audience so they’ll be reliant upon your no script solutions!
• #16: So what does a good mobile experience look like on an analytical report.Here’s two Digirati clients.Time on page, Pages views, the usual metrics.Bounce Rates – important especially if you charge for content, users are demanding a connected experiences across all touch points.And note New Visits is interesting, higher % of new visits coming from mobile - these sites have likely already crossed the line of more visitors accessing via devices rather than desktops.Which brings us to mobile first.
• #17: Some of you may have heard of this, some of your partners and agencies have probably been saying it how they’d ‘design’ your mobile services.So what does it mean?It’s three thingsGrowth Constraints CapabilitiesOr
• #18: 3rd Practice – take advantage of the growing opportunitiesOpportunities – the commercial opportunities of delivering your content to the many 100’s of connected things that exists today and all those under next years Christmas tree that haven’t even been prototyped yetFocus – As prototyping will show you there’s not much room for waffle on a small screen deviceInnovation – All the opportunities offered by interacting with a device that knows where it is, has a camera and can send and receive the images it takes.It’s acknowledging that a mobile device will very soon (between 2012-2014 dependant who you ask) or sooner for our two clients seen on the slide before most likely be the primary means that your audience will access your content.It’s about being future friendly and again why authoring a strategy is a fruitless exercise as we can’t predict the future but we can be ready for it.Being ready might actually mean…
• #19: Targeting opportunities, focus and innovation might take a little thought. But I assure you there will be some people within your business who see these opportunities, you need to discover them and get inside their minds.You might want to pop by and listen to what my colleague Rooven has to say a little later when he talks about Enterprise Collaboration to find out how.You should already know what motivates your audience to return to your site on a regular basis and why they choose to spend their time with you.For almost all of you this reason is your content.This is what differentiates you from the competition – your contentSo the future is not some sexy new look and feel, a rebrand or building an app for the latest device app store.It’s ensuring that your content is available to whatever device requests it, that probably going to be stored in a database, managed by a CMS and delivered through an API most likely via the cloud.Your responsible for the data and content called upon to present your business or brand across all digital channels.And these channels have a context.
• #20: Where and how your content will consumed is difficult to define. 4th Practice – Mobile Context is difficult to define.Context or Mobile Context used to be considered as ‘on the go’, ‘short periods’, ‘little focus’ and basic tasks. This is all changing with powerful devices and wireless connections many of the historic ‘constraints’ are now none-existent.Context now equates to opportunities. Opportunities in that Features and Constraints become the same thing.For instanceScreen Size is a Feature and only becoming a Constraint if it’s particularly small.Local Storage is a feature becoming a Constraint when its not available.
• #21: So how can we understand what our context is?Observation or to give it its correct term Ethnographic research – here in London or any large city is easy, it’s watching people on the back of the bus, the train home or even the coffee bar just over by our stand 720.Google -spent a great deal of time and effort watching how and why regular people used their smartphones. Not just Android phones, but all smartphones. The company even had employees “shadow” users, visiting them at their homes and workplaces to watch how they interacted with their devices.5th Practice – test on location, what do your audience need to do now?Observing and testing should be done by your team ‘on location’Ebay - it provides insight into real world usage – particularly the constraints enforced by connectivity issues
• #22: Whilst observing you may start to see some things that are possibly quite concerning particularly from a commercial aspect.In that if you don’t’ provide an acceptable reading experience users will be creating one for themselves – and that means without all your clutter – that’s marketing, up sell and all the techniques that make your business money.Focus is nothing new – if you run Adword campaigns then you’ll be aware of the recommendations for creating high performing landing pages one of these is focus, no clutter and Google reward you for this when ranking your advert. So why is almost every other page on your site littered with clutter?Users already ‘filter’ your contentSafari has had it’s Reader functionality for a while and its been introduced on iOS5 devices so that what I save to my reading list on my laptop is synced via the cloud to my phone.With other services such as Instapaper, Flipboard and Readable content I save can be delivered to whatever device I choose.Creating the perfect reading experience is where the FT invested a great deal of time whilst designing their html app replacement and where Google invests a great deal of time crafting a superior reading experience. Having the opportunity to Focus on the reason your audience actively return to you opens the opportunity of supporting the concept of connected things.
• #23: Connected things = One account, basket or state across all devices, what I’ve read, what I’ve bookmarked, where I was… Having a seamless cross-channel experience allows for the Start Stop scenario – The Amazon Kindle delivers this across multiple devices.6th Practice – Understand when, where and why users call upon your service (Mental Model / Journey Maps)Many reports have indicated that customers now demand these seamless cross-channel experience, without API’s and sound data modeling they are complex but today unfortunately expected.We have reports from the likes of webcreadible, Ernst and Young and econcultancy that all deliver the same message - users demand joined up experiences when interacting with your brand.When asked 90% of companies consider the multichannel experience to be important, organizational structure is the most significant barrier to success – this is what you need to work at.
• #24: So once you’ve connected your internal structure - how do you deliver a seamless experience? Unfortunately there's no time to talk about these concepts, practices and technologies – Admittedly it’s not everything you need to know- but they are the corner stone of being able to deliver to many connected devices mobile or other. 7th Practice - Make it your business to understand the latest trendsFor more info we’d recommend someone on your team reads these books (about £10 each) and follow the authors – that’s free!
• #25: Why should you spend the time understanding what's possible today if that’s what you pay your agency for?The quality of advice being offered by agencies varies greatly. Some of the comments I’ve heard over the past year when we’ve asked to what level has mobile been considered has left us dumfounded.Still many design agencies are only concerned with how things look rather than how things work, their usability and real user expectations. You need to understand the opportunities available if only so you can have an open discussion with your in house team or when evaluating agencies you may partner with.At digirati our best clients are those who have made it their business to understand what mobile means for their audience because.
• #26: You know your audience, you know your content, you need to know what you can do with itBut most of all…Your customers and audience are human, they demand a quality service not an application.All because You have the customer insightYou have the analytical dataYou Have observed where and when users access your contentAnd you now think customers not technology.
• #27: Mobile is a big opportunity and it’s yours for the taking.