@ Ease

There’s an app for this and there’s an app for that – we get it. And with the iPhone app store sporting figures like 1,000,000,000 downloads and 50,000 different apps it’s easy to call such a platform a runaway success. However after reflecting on my own usage of mobile apps, I’ve concluded one thing – the user experience sucks*.

A friend recently asked me how many iPhone apps I use regularly. My response: 2.

Facebook and Tweetie are really the only apps I use. A couple months ago I even took the unnecessary step of deleting all the apps that were collecting dust on my iPhone, simply because I got tired of looking at them. I’m not the only one like this. A recent study found that 20 days after download only 5 percent of apps are used.

So what’s wrong here? My view: It’s partly the apps but mostly it’s the app store. It’s too heavy. Let me paint you a picture.

* My intention is not to single out the iPhone here. I mean mobile applications in general (e.g., iPhone, Android, Palm, etc.)

A day in the life

I’m wandering around a Best Buy (see hypothetical) and am having trouble locating Blu-Ray players. While I could go ask someone for help, I decide to pull out my trusty smart phone instead (here an iPhone). Here are the steps I have to go through:

1. Click App Store
2. Search “Best Buy”
3. Review app list & select the official Best Buy app
4. Wait about a minute for the download to finish over 3G
5. Launch the Best Buy app and wait for it to load
6. Find Blu-Ray devices

Finally I’m presented with a Blu-Ray page and what are my options?

“View Online.”

Two major issues here:

1) Wow, that was a lot of work.

2) I’m standing in a Best Buy and the Best Buy app is telling me to shop online.

I, of course, am operating under an assumption here. Namely, mobile applications should enhance my physical environment. That’s the difference between a desktop app and mobile app for me. While a desktop app is immersive and provides its own context, a mobile app is auxiliary and responds to context. Mobile apps that don’t fit this bill are simply desktop apps fitted to small screens – ubiquity with no added utility.

Unfortunately, mobile app stores are designed for these types of apps. The arduous setup process, discoverability and, more fundamentally, the notion of an “application” itself are hindering true innovation in the mobile space.

So, let me paint you another picture and present three concepts that illustrate a different approach.

#1 Transitory not transactional

App stores are geared towards transactions. You browse, buy (sometimes for free), and keep goods (applications). In the Best Buy example, I not only stood in the store for almost two minutes before realizing that the application wouldn’t help me but I now had a Best Buy app sitting on my phone. I visit a Best Buy next to never – so why is it still there?

Same thing happened when I downloaded a French dictionary to use in France and a snow report application while in Tahoe. Months later those apps (and their many updates) were still in my face. This is poor design in that it forces a transactional framework onto a transitory interaction. This is what I mean when I say that mobile apps are “heavy.” Getting from inspiration to an open app requires too much work.

There is of course one platform that handles transitory interactions particularly well: the web. I should be able to call up the Best Buy “app” much like I do a website. No downloads, updates or uninstalls, simply “Go.”

#2 Context not subject

While the open (generative) web makes for a great, lightweight app platform, organization via URLs and search engines makes for horrible discovery on mobile. More fundamentally, the challenge is that the web has been developed to interpret user input – but not environmental input. That made sense back when computers were bolted onto desks but today’s “computer” lives in the pocket and the catalyst for usage is often tied to some measurable environmental factors.

Some applications have done a good job responding to such factors. And here I must really commend the iPhone, in particular, for providing so many valuable inputs. I would count Shazam as a great mobile app; with one click the song you’re hearing but don’t know the name of is analyzed and, if successful, the song name returned. That wouldn’t have much application on a desk-bolted computer but on a mobile device that’s with you in cafes and bars, it’s golden.

But how does one get to downloading Shazam? Well, you have to know it by name or do some novel searches to find it, or in other words it’s only discoverable via user input. Wouldn’t it make more sense if it were suggested to you when the phone detects a song playing? What I’m really getting at is designing an App Store around discoverability via context.

Let’s revisit the Best Buy example to see what I mean. This time I’m packing an iPhone with a very context-sensitive app store and applications.

A better day in the life

I’m wandering around a Best Buy and am having trouble locating Blu-Ray players. While I could go ask someone for help, I decide to pull out my trusty iPhone. Here are the steps I have to go through:

1. Open App Store (i.e., a customized browser)
2. Search “nearby” or just click the location button
   1. This contextual search uses information about the surrounding area to present relevant applications. Since I’m standing in a Best Buy that application is presented first. The Starbucks next door is also presented.
   2. 
3. Select Best Buy from the list
   1. Note: With one click I not only load Best Buy (no download needed) but I’m put directly into the context of the specific store I’m standing in.
4. Ask “Where’s Blu-Ray?”
   1. I’m presented with GPS-like directions. As I move throughout the store the screen continuously updates and I can simply replace “Blu-Ray” with “Checkout” or “Restroom.”
   2. 

So there you have it. A much better user experience driven by context both in the app store and in the application itself. As a bonus, this kind of discovery can reinforce synergies found in the physical environment. There’s a good reason why a Starbucks is located next to a Best Buy – we should replicate that on mobile as well and perhaps suggest to the user to order their drink when they are waiting in the Best Buy checkout line.

#3 Eco not silo

So far I have suggested we kill the transactional nature of app stores and reorganize them based on context but my last suggestion may be the most radical – let’s kill the concept of an “application” altogether. Here’s my beef (it’s one that was first articulated to me by my Mozilla colleague, Aza Raskin, so consider this section co-production):

Applications are selfish – they keep innovations to themselves. While Web 2.0 has done a better job of “mash ups” this really occurs at the data level – what applications need to do is share functionality as well. What do I mean? Let’s say a word processor does a great job of producing rainbow colored text like this and that you love it so much that you want every word you ever type to be in rainbow. Ideally you’d set that up once and then no matter what application you are using, be it Word, Facebook, Photoshop, your type would be colorful. What I’m really suggesting is an architecture where features, as well as data, are pervasive. An application here would be redefined as a particular grouping of global features and data. Differentiation here purely resides in user experience as all applications could share in the best features and data available.

Why is this particularly important in mobile? Because while on the desktop we’ve developed task bars and shortcuts to help us manage the dozens of applications that we have running, on mobile we don’t have the same power or screen real estate. When we launch a mobile application it effectively takes over our phone. That makes not having access to data or features that much more painful.

Or put more positively wouldn’t it be great to have all your favorite features within reach? What if the Best Buy app utilized the same “nearby” feature that I had used to launch it in the first place? I could recursively search “nearby” again and now see what’s around me in the store:

And since this functionality transcends the app, the Best Buy app could deliver a lot more than just product information. It could even tell me that a friend is in the store too.

Not bad for a brick-and-mortar, eh?