When you’re doing mobile development within an organization that also does a lot of web development, you have to constantly be on the lookout for web design creeping into your mobile apps. Because of the large influence of web design on mobile app design (and because so much web design is now very much mobile first), it’s easier to find designers who are familiar with web and assume that mobile works the same. Sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. Here are some things to look out for.
Descriptions of interfaces that describe users as clicking things. I know, this is a small and petty item. You don’t click mobile interfaces (unless they are hardware buttons), you tap or press or swipe them. And yes, even mobile developers can fall into this old habit. Insisting on describing it as a tap helps keep everyone focussed on that fact that this is a mobile app, not a desktop app.
Dropdown lists. This one isn’t quite as bad as it was a few years ago, but it tends to indicate you’re dealing with someone who is not only more used to desktop interfaces than mobile ones, but also someone who is very Windows centric. It’s not that dropdown lists are intrinsically bad. The problem comes when your designed reaches for familiar to them interfaces that aren’t native to the mobile environment you’re working in. Yes, you can implement these interfaces in a mobile environment, but that comes at a cost in time to code and test and continuing maintenance costs. It also tends to make your apps look naive in a mobile context and will threaten the trust of your more savvy users. Also, if your designer is leaning on desktop-centric interface patterns, they’re likely not making best use of mobile interface patterns.
Fonts. The availability of web fonts in a web context is great and allows for some wonderful typography, but be on the lookout for mobile app designs that use a large number of fonts that are not natively available on the device. You will need to add those (properly licensed!) fonts to your mobile app, increasing the app size and the load time. When you’re developing for multiple platforms, you probably won’t be able to avoid adding some fonts, but you should keep them to a minimum. Increased load times almost always results in more users abandoning your apps.
These issues get even murkier in hybrid development where much (or most) of the content is html/css/javascript served via a native web view. Even in this case, you should let your design be driven by mobile principles rather than desktop/web principles if you want an app that is perceived as being of high quality. And if you’re trying to contain development and maintenance costs as well, then sticking with native interfaces can help a lot.
Sam Herdman 