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Mobile & Tablet Articles & Videos

  • How to Fit Big Tables on Small Screens

    No matter your screen size, some data tables will be too big for the screen. This problem is particularly common on mobile devices. Simple interaction techniques can help, but you may need to offer users more advanced features for information hiding and column reordering.

  • Multitasking on Microsoft’s Surface Duo

    The Duo is a two-screen foldable mobile device that enables users to use two applications side by side, but most apps do not take advantage of the two screens. Support for information transfer from one app to the other is limited and multitasking within the same app is at times confusing.

  • Easier Input on Mobile Devices

    Form filling and other user input on mobile devices such as smartphones can be awkward and error prone, but by taking advantage of the strengths of the phone, designers can improve the usability of these tasks substantially.

  • UX Guidelines for Augmented-Reality Shopping Tools

    Ecommerce AR tools are relatively new, so must be highly discoverable and easy to learn. Calibration issues run rampant, and users must dedicate focused attention to interact with this unfamiliar feature.

  • User Interface Design Fails

    Jakob Nielsen discusses the biggest failures in today's user interface design. (Recorded at the Virtual UX Conference.)

  • Virtual Reality and User Experience

    Virtual reality (VR) user interfaces are currently more difficult for users to manipulate than a traditional GUI, partly because of more degrees of freedom and partly because VR is still new, so people have less experience using it. Advice for how to employ usability studies to alleviate this problem.

  • Accordion Icons: Which Signifiers Work Best?

    The caret icon most clearly indicated to users that it would open an accordion in place, rather than linking directly to a new page.

  • Mobile-App Onboarding: An Analysis of Components and Techniques

    Onboarding is the process of getting users familiar with a new interface. It can involve one or more of the following components: feature promotion, customization, and instructions.

  • Mobile Tutorials: Wasted Effort or Efficiency Boost?

    Our research shows that tutorials don’t make users faster or more successful at completing tasks; on the contrary, they make them perceive the tasks as more difficult.

  • Mobile Microsessions

    Notifications, widgets, quick actions, and Siri shortcuts or Google Assistant routines are all ways to support mobile sessions shorter than 15 seconds, with minimal interaction to complete a user goal.

  • Designing Effective Carousels for Websites and Mobile Apps

    Sliding hero images that rotate through a set of promotions, news, or the like on the top of web pages are often annoying to users and are definitely error prone, unless they are designed according to usability guidelines.

  • Simple Design Is Relative

    Simplicity depends on the capacity of the information channel and what's simple for one device, can be primitive or intricate for another, since screens are information channels with a limited capacity. When you're designing for multiple devices, don't go by common cliches like "simple is good."

  • Touch Targets on Touchscreens

    Interactive elements must be at least 1cm × 1cm (0.4in × 0.4in) to support adequate selection time and prevent fat-finger errors.

  • 3 Design Considerations for Effective Mobile-App Permission Requests

    Mobile permission requests are often poorly designed. Consider the content and timing of these requests, avoid dark patterns, and enable users to reverse their decision.

  • Why Users Feel Trapped in Their Devices: The Vortex

    Many users report anxiety and lack of control over the amount of time they spend online. We call this feeling “the Vortex.”

  • Mobile-Checkout Experience: Tips

    Remember these essential experience elements that are often overlooked or easily forgotten during the mobile-checkout design process.

  • Designing Effective App Permission Requests

    App permission requests are an important part of the overall user experience, yet they are often neglected by app designers. Here are 3 tips for designing them well: get content, timing, and decision reversal right, or users will just say NO.

  • Social Features in Chinese Apps

    Social features (like online communities and experience sharing) are very popular in Chinese apps. This video offers examples and tips for adding social features to your product.

  • The Mobile Checkout Experience

    Optimize the checkout experience on mobile ecommerce channels by taking into account the strengths and limitations of mobile devices. Aim to minimize the number of steps and typing, and take advantage of capabilities such as geolocation and the camera.

  • Five Mistakes in Designing Mobile Push Notifications

    Provide value to users before asking them to receive your app’s notifications; tell them what the notifications will be about. Don’t send notifications in bursts; make it easy to turn them off.

  • How to Fit Big Tables on Small Screens

    No matter your screen size, some data tables will be too big for the screen. This problem is particularly common on mobile devices. Simple interaction techniques can help, but you may need to offer users more advanced features for information hiding and column reordering.

  • Easier Input on Mobile Devices

    Form filling and other user input on mobile devices such as smartphones can be awkward and error prone, but by taking advantage of the strengths of the phone, designers can improve the usability of these tasks substantially.

  • User Interface Design Fails

    Jakob Nielsen discusses the biggest failures in today's user interface design. (Recorded at the Virtual UX Conference.)

  • Virtual Reality and User Experience

    Virtual reality (VR) user interfaces are currently more difficult for users to manipulate than a traditional GUI, partly because of more degrees of freedom and partly because VR is still new, so people have less experience using it. Advice for how to employ usability studies to alleviate this problem.

  • Designing Effective Carousels for Websites and Mobile Apps

    Sliding hero images that rotate through a set of promotions, news, or the like on the top of web pages are often annoying to users and are definitely error prone, unless they are designed according to usability guidelines.

  • Simple Design Is Relative

    Simplicity depends on the capacity of the information channel and what's simple for one device, can be primitive or intricate for another, since screens are information channels with a limited capacity. When you're designing for multiple devices, don't go by common cliches like "simple is good."

  • Why Users Feel Trapped in Their Devices: The Vortex

    Many users report anxiety and lack of control over the amount of time they spend online. We call this feeling “the Vortex.”

  • Mobile-Checkout Experience: Tips

    Remember these essential experience elements that are often overlooked or easily forgotten during the mobile-checkout design process.

  • Designing Effective App Permission Requests

    App permission requests are an important part of the overall user experience, yet they are often neglected by app designers. Here are 3 tips for designing them well: get content, timing, and decision reversal right, or users will just say NO.

  • Social Features in Chinese Apps

    Social features (like online communities and experience sharing) are very popular in Chinese apps. This video offers examples and tips for adding social features to your product.

  • How To Setup a Mobile Usability Test

    There are a lot of elements involved in a mobile usability test. In this video, we'll walk you through an example test setup, including the necessary equipment, and discuss how to prepare for a test.

  • Overloaded vs. Generic Commands

    Overloading different outcomes on similar commands can be confusing. Using the same command for multiple actions enhances usability if the results are conceptually the same.

  • Mobile UX Sharpens Usability Guidelines

    Many guidelines are similar for mobile and desktop design, but their mobile interpretation is much more unforgiving.

  • Mobile Content: If in Doubt, Leave It Out

    Writing for mobile readers requires even harsher editing than writing for the Web. Mobile use implies less patience for filler copy.

  • Mobile Usability 2nd Research Study

    The user experience of mobile websites and apps has improved since our last research, but still has far to go. A dedicated mobile site is a must, and apps get even higher usability scores.

  • Transmedia Design for the 3 Screens (Make That 5)

    Mobile use will rise, but desktop computers will remain important, forcing companies to design for multiple platforms, requiring continuity in visual design, features, user data, and tone of voice.

  • Defer Secondary Content When Writing for Mobile Users

    Mobile devices require a tight focus in content presentation, with the first screen limited to only the most essential information.

  • Intranet Portals: Personalization Hot, Mobile Weak, Governance Essential

    19 new case studies of enterprise portals find slow growth in new features; the focus is on robust integration and formalizing governance.

  • Why WSJ Mobile App Gets ** Customer Reviews

    A confusing startup screen that offends existing subscribers dooms The Wall Street Journal's iPhone app to low ratings.

  • Mini-IA: Structuring the Information About a Concept

    In a miniature information architecture, coverage of a single topic is chunked into units that are connected through simple navigation.

  • iPad Usability: Year One

    iPad apps are much improved, but new usability problems have emerged, such as swipe ambiguity and navigation overload.

  • Utilize Available Screen Space

    Websites and mobile apps both frequently cram options into too-small parts of the screen, making items harder to understand.

  • Optimizing a Screen for Mobile Use

    A single mobile screen with almost no features still required 10 design changes to meet usability guidelines for mobile websites.

  • Mobile Content Is Twice as Difficult

    When reading from an iPhone-sized screen, comprehension scores for complex Web content were 48% of desktop monitor scores.

  • iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds

    A study of people reading long-form text on tablets finds higher reading speeds than in the past, but they're still slower than reading print.

  • iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing

    iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.

  • iPhone Apps Need Low Starting Hurdles

    Most mobile applications are used only intermittently, so they must be especially easy during initial use. In particular, upfront registration shouldn't be required before users experience an app's benefits.

  • Mobile Usability, First Findings

    In user testing, website use on mobile devices got very low scores, especially when users accessed 'full' sites that weren't designed for mobile.

  • Kindle Content Design

    Writing for Kindle is like writing for print, the Web, and mobile devices combined; optimal usability means optimizing content for each platform's special characteristics.

  • Kindle 2 Usability Review

    Amazon's new e-book reader offers print-level readability and shines for reading fiction, but it has awkward interaction design and poor support for non-linear content.

  • Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998

    Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions.