Paul Golding writes that the idea of the mobile ‘browser’ is an oxymoron. I agree wholeheartedly; the strong activity / goal orientation of mobile devices keeps bringing me back to the idea of the networked micro-application, something that lives in the cloud but is delivered through a UI that is entirely appropriate to its function and context of use.
“We insist on thinking in terms of ‘browsing,’ but is there such a thing in the mobile context? I don’t think so. A basic observation of the vast number of eye-scanning, skim-reading, link-hovering, link-clicking, page-jumping, coffee-sipping, chair-reclining, mouse-shuffling, Google-jumping activities that go on in an average desktop ‘web browsing’ session would demonstrate how nearly all of these activities are insufferably difficult on a mobile device in a mobile context – e.g. standing in the suffocatingly hot linkway between two carriages on the train leaving Paddington station…There are plenty of clever UI possibilities to achieve ‘flow’ and ‘point the way,’ should we decide that this is what the mobile is all about. The point is to forget browsing (aka ‘desktop web browsing’) and think of something else.”
Link: Mobile browsing is not the same as browsing on the mobile… (wirelesswanders.com)
