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Mobile Technology UX

It’s 2017, so why are mobile experiences still so bad?

By Billy Leonard, content account director

Harvest Digital

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The Drum Network article

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February 3, 2017 | 6 min read

Christmas was only just over a month ago, but I’m still furious. The reason I’m furious is that I – like so many others this Christmas – had to endure an awful shopping experience on mobile.

Why are mobile experiences still so bad?

Why are mobile experiences still so bad?

Last February, the IMRG reported that 51 percent of online sales had involved hand-held devices over traditional computers or laptops. The previous year the figure was just 40 percent. It’s now a year later and, while the IMRG has yet to publish a report, we can all guess at what the findings will show. Mobile shopping experiences are overwhelmingly common, the norm even. So why is it that brands are still forcing consumers to muddle their way through bad mobile shopping experiences?

Last Christmas I gave you my heart

Now it’s time for the callouts. This Christmas, I had the joyous task of navigating and then purchasing Christmas gifts on my phone, in between the thousand and one other things I had to do. The sites I navigated included, but weren’t limited to; Topshop, Next and Ticketmaster.

These sites were all dreadful to navigate. Slow mobile load times, poor page navigation, tiny text, small buttons. All very simple UX/UI choices that are easy to fix, but apparently Next is just not that bothered. Topshop couldn’t care less if I spend 10 minutes struggling to checkout. Ticketmaster doesn’t appear to give a damn that I can’t find the tickets I want.

The only thing that stopped me bouncing from these sites was the fact that I was purchasing Christmas presents I had been specifically tasked with purchasing. If it was me, I would’ve left and gone somewhere else.

And I’m not the only one. Brand loyalty isn’t a massive deal amongst millennials, so what’s to stop those millennials, and their money, trying a different brand? Millennials will have the greatest spending power of any generation by 2018, so you better make sure you’re doing everything in your power to try and capture it.

It’s all in the UX

There are, of course, brands out there that are capturing the mobile shopping experience amazingly. So well, in fact, that they’re some of the biggest start-ups on the planet – and they don’t even carry any of their own stock.

Think about it. Airbnb doesn’t own any properties. Uber doesn’t license any cars. What makes them so successful and valuable – they’re valued at over $58bn between them – is their innovative approach to UX.

Both of these magical unicorns are built on UX and not much else. They approached a problem, in a market that was already incredibly crowded, and thought – how can we make this better? Instead of focusing on their conversion rates and delivering the most amount of content possible on a single landing page, they asked ‘what information does our user need?’, ‘how can we help them?’

By asking these questions, they’ve created a user journey that is incredibly slick and smooth, but also designed for mobile. Instead of focusing what they think they should deliver, they delivered something that is new.

But we have an app!

Many retailers, including the ones I mentioned above, have apps. Good for them. But here’s the real deal – nobody uses your app.

Of the top most used apps of 2016, not a single retail app ranks in the top 10. The only retail app that even ranks in the top 30 is Amazon – and you’re not going to beat Amazon.

Apps have a long list of reasons for why they fail. The most glaring is that each retailer has an app, and smartphones only have so much space. Consumers don’t want to use a separate app for each retailer, especially when they’re concerned that the app may not offer the full experience of the store, or that the app may be unsafe and leak sensitive user information (which happens more often than you might think.)

This combination of reasons drives consumers towards the mobile site. Towards the slow, painful mobile experience. Towards sites that trade in on their big brand names at the cost of their customers’ sanity.

Consider the UX of your own mobile site and remember these tips:

  • If a user has to use their index finger, the buttons are too small;
  • The perception of load time can be reduced with smooth loading animations;
  • Buttons on websites should appear clickable and have enough space that users can comfortably tap them;
  • Don’t hide the search field in a menu - users typically look for it in the top right corner;
  • Try not to clutter the screen with interactive elements.

It’s not enough now to be responsive, to be mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendly was last year’s news. You now have to start thinking mobile first. And if you’re not, it’ll be on your own head.

Billy Leonard is senior content and outreach executive at Harvest Digital

Mobile Technology UX

Content by The Drum Network member:

Harvest Digital

Harvest Digital is a leading performance-based full service digital marketing agency based in the heart of London. Our clients span many different sectors – finance,...

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