Making Mobile Web Apps Suitable for Discontinuous Working Patterns
Mobile users, by definition, are on the move. That is why they need a mobile device instead of being content with their desktops and telephones which can do far more than a smartphone. Mobile users are often interrupted. They can lose connections, get a phone call, or need to focus on some other pressing issue. Unlike users at home and or in the office, mobile users generally do not have a lot of time to focus on completing a task. Even the time that they have for any given task is unpredictable because they often cannot foresee when they will be interrupted. To cope with this, mobile users must be able to work in small, discontinuous chunks of time. The typical work pattern is that they start a task, change focus to something else when interrupted, and then come back to the task at some later time. So the task gets done in small chunks spread over of time. This is one reason why Chat/Instant Messaging, which is ideally suited for working in small, discontinuous chunks of time, is by far the most popular smartphone application. Read more →