Presented by Luke Wroblewski.

  • Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision for the Web was that it would be a read/write experience.
  • The largest destinations on the Internet are based on user’s contributions (e.g. Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, AOL).
  • All of these destinations/companies are working to bring their experiences to mobile.

60% of all Twitter users are mobile users.

40% of views on YouTube are from a mobile device.

  • The mobile-only population is the fastest growing on Facebook: 127% in the last year.

30% of Indian Facebook users are mobile-only.

10,000 cars a week are sold on eBay mobile.

Utility-based apps are increasing in use on mobile. Things like shopping, financial, health, planning, and travel apps.

One-Handed Use

  • Polar was designed from the ground up to be used thumbs-only for both content consumption and creation.
  • Keyboards and mice are an abstraction between us and software. With mobile, touch-based devices, this abstraction layer is removed and we interact directly with software.

What we need to do to design is to look at the extremes. The middle will take care of itself. — Dan Formosa

  • If you can use an app with just a thumb, you can use it with the rest of your fingers.
  • 68% of consumer smartphone use is happening at home.
  • When designing for one-handed use, try to design in such a way that the device keyboard does not appear (e.g. Google’s mobile Flight Search).

Destination suggestions

Date selection

Focused Flows

  • Boingo saw a 53% decrease in sign-up times by eliminating 11 unnecessary input fields.
  • Hotel Tonight takes 8 seconds to book a hotel (3 taps and a swipe).

It takes big changes to go small.

  • Hotel Tonight’s reviews are photographic instead of written.
  • In order to get creative, you have to push boundaries.

Just-In-Time Actions

  • On Polar, when making a poll and the keyboard displays, a user’s avatar is swapped with a “Close keyboard” icon.
  • Pinterest-style hide/show header/footer on scrolling (also on Google+ mobile).
  • A just-in-time action: something that’s relevant in the moment and is then hidden when it’s no longer relevant.

The New Reality of Cross-Device Usage

  • There is more than one screen in our lives. 13% of Americans own a laptop, tablet, and smartphone.

Access

  • Seamless movement of content across devices.
  • Apps like Chrome remember sessions across devices, including Back-button/history.

Flow

  • Seamless movement of process across devices (e.g. Google Maps)
  • eBay keeps track of in-process listings across devices (website and mobile app).
  • Google Docs live changes across devices in real time.
  • Google’s Racer Chrome experiment

Control

  • One device controlling another.
  • Old Yahoo! “Projector” login: A phone could scan an image on a computer to verify a login.
  • OneID identity management service to securely log in to services. Similar to Authy.

Push

  • One device sending data to another (e.g. AirPlay).
  • Chromecast uses same user agent and IP as the controlling device. It also mimics the pixel dimensions of the controlling device.