Mobile Phones Not Very Usable for Internet Tasks
Jakob Nielsen has determined that the term “mobile usability†is an oxymoron after researching the usability of mobile phones when completing Internet tasks. 6 different phones were tested and participants were given a variety of tasks to perform using a total of 36 websites. The success rate for completing the tasks successfully was poor when compared with the success rate on a standard PC.
Neilsen states that the problems are because:
- small screens of mobile phones mean that people can’t see all the options and this hampers their ability to complete tasks
- it’s hard to type on a mobile phone even those with mini keyboards
the lack of a mouse makes using a user interface difficult - poor performance of mobile Internet means that it takes a long time to move from one web page to the next
- websites are badly design for mobile Internet
Not surprisingly, more sophisticated phones performed better in the study. Three types of phone were used, ordinary mobile phones, smartphones and touch-screen phones. The success rate was highest amongst touch-screen users, then smartphone users while the usability of ordinary phones was very poor.
Nielsen concludes that the answer in the short term is for designers to design mobile-optimised sites.
A summary of the study can be found at Jakob Neilsen’s, Alertbox with links to the full report.
Filed Under: Mobile Broadband Devices
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