Mobile Interfaces Moving Upstream

As mobile usage on the web grows towards the traffic tipping point, user interface design for both mobile and the desktop is going to undergo a significant change and we think it will surprise you which way it's likely to go.

To date, most design for the web has naturally started on the desktop and migrated to the mobile browser in the form of either a mobile-specific site or a responsive design. By design and requirement, these versions are frequently subsets of their desktop progenitor.

However, as web traffic shifts to toward smart-phones and tablets, we are starting to see design and content decisions and conventions move back upstream from mobile to desktop. And it is likely we are going to see more new site designs moving this way. 

The reasons for this are easy-to-understand for anyone that has been in the planning meeting for a new site design or redesign. In those meetings three groups hash it out for ultimate supremacy:

• Marketing/product/sales factions fighting for primacy in the main navigation and home page
• Designers arguing for the value of user-centered UX and white space
• Producers arguing for simplicity in the design - especially looking to increase the number of shared elements for the different versions of the site (web, mobile, language/region-specific)

These conflicting agendas are exacerbated further in mobile development which, like transistor/chip development before it, is required to do more with less space. As a result, like chip designers, mobile interface designers have become very adept at miniaturizing important elements and creating new conventions that handle a lot of the heavy lifting in the tiny screen space.

A prime example is the 3 horizontal bars indicating a drop-down menu - you've seen it on responsive sites as well as mobile apps.

Inter-site navigation icon
on Gawker.com

Click on the bars and a panel slides out or down offering navigation and feature options. Click on an option and the panel slides back in and you are off to your new destination. 

"Flyout" navigation elements have been used to save space while allowing options to be easily accessed are nearly a decade old, but never before have they hid nearly the entire navigation under a single icon. But along came the tiny screens on mobile devices and issues of space and usability forced a new convention to be born.

Content sites like Gawker, Slate and National Journal have already started using this convention on their desktop version and it's just a matter of time before we see other ecommerce, content and B2B sites taking this lead.

While it may take a bit longer with the big e-commerce sites like Amazon, (Unbridled Brain client) Walmart, and Target, the smaller, more nimble e-commerce and content sites will quickly adopt these conventions to provide themselves with more of that valuable header and home page real estate.

What this means is UX and UI designers will continue to evolve a common visual vocabulary that works across multiple devices and screen sizes - saving needed space on phones, and opening up new content opportunities on the bigger screens of tablets and desktops.

Eventually - likely in the next year or two as mobile traffic becomes the majority for most sites - the current design process will be flipped on its head. Mobile will be the starting point and the desktop will benefit from the extra space as a secondary consideration.

All of this means, the next time you are in a meeting about the redesign of your site the UX or UI designer will be able to make far more of her internal constituents happy without sacrificing the needs of their external constituents for a usable and consistent site experience. 

Falling up (updated)!

We've been in it from the beginning (or near enough for blogging). Producers, Designers, Engineers, Project Managers. We've built dozens of applications and web sites. Odds are you have been on one of the sites or used one of the applications we built.

Over the last 12 years we have hired dozens of project managers, engineers and designers. When it comes time to pitch the ones we want, the primary selling point is the experience you gain working on multiple applications for multiple clients at one time.

With us, the pitch goes, the candidate is going to get the experience and skill set that allows them to get the next position. And as no company guarantees permanent employment, the closest any of us comes to job security is that ability to get the next gig.

And despite the burst of the bubble and the subsequent employment roller coaster, this axiom has proven nearly bulletproof: the people that we hired, mentored, trained or just worked around have universally 'fallen up' when they left. Whether its an engineer becoming CTO, a Project Manager making VP, or a designers transitioning to Product Manager. Entering and surviving the agency crucible in last 8 years has qualified the survivors to follow their dreams with success that would have been unimaginable before they entered the fire.

Four years ago we determined it was time to take all that experience and 'fall up' ourselves. From our safe spots in agencies and companies, we headed out to build our own consulting agency and take job security, project quality and client satisfaction into our own hands.

With nearly a half decade in this, the results are encouraging -

Upside: amazing bursts of genius come much more frequently when the mortgage is on the line with each one.
Downside: working virtually means fewer people around to share the brilliance with

Upside: commute is 30 seconds
Downside: miss the 30-45 minutes of downtime that came with commute

upside: shorts and flip-flops are business-casual most days
Downside: none

Upside: master of our own destinies
Downside: no one is master of their own destiny and we are finding that out daily

This blog will be our forum - here we will analyze, emote, explain, vent and generally keep you all apprised of the progress of our adventure in 'falling up'.