The mobile web is growing faster than we can imagine. I compared it last year to where the web was in 1998, but this year we leap forward to roughly the state of the Internet in 2001. Standards are coming into place with HTML5, adoption is growing faster on the mobile web than the desktop web, and companies are starting to do real business off of mobile devices. Despite all the growth, major misconceptions exist among businesses about how to effectively use the mobile web to best serve their customers and support their business.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/19877/5-Misconceptions-About-the-Mobile-Web.aspx#ixzz1mB13VU9M

Last month the Boston Bruins won the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup. As excitement grew for Boston fans, so did the time it took to access local content provider Boston.com.

A Marlin Mobile performance analysis showed that Boston.com exhibited huge spikes in slow performance as the game started (8:00 pm EDT) and as the game came to a close (11:00 pm EDT). At each of these points the average time it took for their mobile home page to download was 33 seconds, a huge decrease in performance compared to their typical 5-6 second page download time.

Are you flying blind with the performance of your mobile experience? Request a demo today! Contact us at demo@marlinmobile.com or call 617-763-1167.

Key findings

• Dell Streak 7 on T-Mobile running Android 2.2, leads the pack
• Dell Streak performs 30% faster than the new Motorola Xoom running Android 3.0
• The Samsung Galaxy Tab across T-mobile, Sprint, and Verizon appears at the bottom of the benchmark

Marlin Mobile’s newest quarterly benchmark shows that Verizon’s latest entry within the tablet marketplace is not the fastest device. The Motorola Xoom, utilizing Android 3.0, performed 30% slower than its T-Mobile competitor, the Dell Streak 7, running Android 2.2.

What does this mean for the user experience on Android tablets?

Our benchmark demonstrates that Android 3.0 is not improving performance on tablets. The Xoom and Streak both share the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip as its processor. What separates both devices is the operating system installed. Even though the Android 3.0 is designed to specifically improve the user experience, speed is a factor in how a user perceives the performance of their tablet. We are seeing that the selected components make a substantive difference in the performance equation.

As more Android 3.0 tablets are brought to market, we will more definitively see which factors are the critical performance inhibitors over time. Will Android 3.0 slow down other tablets running the Tegra 2 chip? Is screen size a factor? Clearly the fragmentation issues that plague the Android phone market are also an issue in the Android tablet space.

Marlin Mobile’s Tablet Benchmark measures the performance of Android tablets leveraging the Marlin Mobile test network. The network consists of more than 300 tablets distributed across the United States, which conduct performance tests on the mobile website of a leading content publisher.

How much does processor affect Android devices? Stop by next week for the answer!

Key findings

• The fastest Android handset on the market is the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon.
• The Bottom 5 phones are five to eight times slower than the Top 5 phones.
• The slowest phones are sold largely by T-Mobile and Sprint.

Marlin Mobile’s latest quarterly benchmark shows that the HTC Thunderbolt by Verizon is the fastest Android phone. However, Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone – the highly touted Thunderbolt – is really only a hair faster than its current 3G and 4G competitors. The hype surrounding the Thunderbolt is marketing driven, rather than by actual performance metrics considering the realities of Verizon’s 4G network coverage.

What does all this really mean for user experience?

On the positive side, consumers are finally seeing phones that can come close to their user’s expectations for a web experience of reasonable quality. But as more and more high- end devices emerge, user expectations will continue to climb. The baseline will become a more interactive, engaging, and rich mobile web experience, compared to the “stripped down” mobile web experience users tolerated previously on more primitive phones. Compared to the previous Marlin Mobile benchmark we see much more parity in performance among the Top 5 phones, and we expect that to continue.

On the negative side, carriers are still distributing low-end devices that are hurting both the mobile web experience and consumer confidence. With devices that are five to eight times slower than the leading devices on the market, many customers are suffering from an unnecessarily poor user experience. The Marlin Mobile benchmark displays poor devices still generate mediocre  user experiences on the mobile web, even if those devices are running on LTE or 4G networks.

Marlin Mobile’s Benchmark measured the speed of Android phones using the Marlin Mobile test network. That network leveraged more than 500 phones distributed across 7 states. The Benchmark measured the performance of different Android devices accessing content on the mobile website of a leading content publisher.

What’s the fastest Android tablet on the market today? Tune in next week for the answer!

Misconception #1:  The mobile web screen is small, so designing for it must easier. Wrong…Mobile web browsers are far less forgiving than desktop browsers.

Misconception #2:  It is easy to copy and paste mobile apps from platform to platform. Wrong…An iPhone is an iPhone, and a Droid is a Droid – their users are different and so are their habits (i.e. Android users are accustomed a menu button, iPhone users have no idea what that concept even means).

Misconception #3:  It is best to fit everything on to one screen. Wrong…Multiple devices and screen size fragmentation require sites to be fluid.  The design must respond to multiple widths.  A width of 320px won’t cut it anymore.

Misconception #4:  We determine the user experience. Wrong…Your customer does.  Better to take the time to find out what your users want and give them that, rather than dictate it to them.

Misconception #5:  Buttons are still for clicks. Wrong…Design using your finger, a small button does not cut it anymore.

QR codes are the new Easter egg hunt for the tech savvy mobile nomad.  Just find one, scan it with a QR code reader, and surprise – most of the time the experience falls short.

Here are three quick tips to make sure you get the most out of your QR strategy:

1. A good QR code user experience is about a task and a reward. Make sure the reward is something that excites the users who have gone through your process to get there. Make it engaging and provide an incentive, such as providing a promo or discount for your on-the-go consumer.
2. Make sure the content you provide is mobile optimized. No one carries their desktop to scan a QR code – so make sure your mobile site is designed for the mobile experience.
3. Think critically about the placement of a QR code as an ad. Make sure it is easy enough to find and large enough for people to access.  Ever tried scanning on a moving train?  I have…Let me tell you that it is quite impossible to scan a small one inch by one inch square absorbing that kind of movement.

It is not too late to register for “Taking it to the Streets: Mobile UI and UX” presented at the BostonCHI Professional Development Seminars 2011 on March 25th in Natick, MA.  Marlin Mobile co-founder Adrian Mendoza will lecture on designing mobile user experiences across multiple mobile platforms.

Register Here for the Course

Course Description:
The advent of the smart phone (iPhone, Droid, Windows phone) has created new opportunities as well as challenges for User Interface and User Experience designers. Mobile provides both an entry and opportunity to connect and interact one-on-one with users using their location, unique device, and hardware (camera, accelerometer, etc). In this course, students will learn how to design and prototype applications across several mobile devices and the mobile web. Topics covered include designing across multiple platforms, mobile user habits, differences across technologies, and user experience issues when working in mobile. The goal of this course is to provide an overview on the state of mobile design and the uniqueness of mobile compared to the browser. Students are asked to bring their laptops (Mac or PC) and mobile devices (any kind) to the course. If possible, students are also asked to install Omnigraffle (Mac), Visio (PC) or other similar wireframing tools on their laptops ahead of time. There are free trial versions of these tools available online.

About Adrian Mendoza:
Adrian Mendoza’s career is highlighted by over 12 years of design and user experience in the handheld, pharmaceutical, financial, and educational sectors. His first studio, Synthesis3, worked with several Palm OS software companies in creating their brand for both a web and retail presence. In the financial and career education sector, customers included Sovereign Bank, Houghton Mifflin, MIT and Harvard. Adrian has consulted in UX and Information Architect lead roles for Fidelity’s E-business design group, Thomson Reuters, Razorfish, Sapient and T.Rowe Price. His current role is as a partner/owner at Mendoza Design, a Brookline, MA based UX consultancy, and co-Founder at Marlin Mobile, a company focused on mobile web performance and optimization. He is is also a lecturer at Mass Art. Adrian earned his Bachelors from the University of Southern California and his Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Adrian has been quoted in several publications and recently had a guest column published in Mobile Marketer. You can follow his mobile UX blog at http://www.marlinmobile.com/blog or follow him on twitter http://www.twitter.com/marlinux

Now for Omnigraffle, explore the wonderful world of Windows Phone 7!  We created an overview and wireframing library of this new mobile operating system!  We even added 3 windows themes to choose from:  blue, yellow, and green.  Feel free to explore and create your own Windows Phone 7 app.

Want to learn more about the windows phone 7 interactions? Read more here:
Windows Phone 7 Design Resources

Installation
1. Download Windows Phone 7 – Version 1.0
2. Move it to your ~/Library/Application Support/OmniGraffle/Stencils directory. The ~ represents your user “home” folder.
Version Notes
1.0:  First one

Download the Mobile UI Toolkit