You haven’t read my blog posts. I can tell. It’s not the analytics; we’re not doing Facebook stalker-like tracking, it’s because my posts have included advice on designing mobile web experiences, identified assumptions ruining your mobile design, and provided guidelines on optimizing your B2B website for mobile.

And yet, your website is borderline un-useable on my phone and that “web app” you created is nothing more than a glorified sales brochure that sucks memory on my tablet and does nothing to help me find what I need.

So I can only assume you aren’t reading my blogs. Or you don’t have any interest in pleasing your users. Or having a successful web presence, which ultimately means you don’t want to grow your business.

By 2012, globally, more people will connect to the Internet via a mobile device than through a computer. (Mobithinking Global Mobile Statistics). And you’ve done nothing, with all your B2B marketing efforts, to improve your audiences’ mobile experiences. If you won’t listen to me, how about your users?

What Mobile Users Say When Your Design Fails

“There’s so much here. Where do I start?”
Issue: Failure to identify the content of the greatest value to users and prioritize placement accordingly.
Fix It: Know your audience, what they are likely to be doing and where will they be doing it. Then streamline and deliver the right content.

“Oops. I didn’t mean to do that.”
Issue: Content is too small to tap or too close together resulting in difficult or unintended touches.
Fix It:  Make the targets larger to address imprecise fingers. (Apple UI Guidelines cite ideal touch target size at 44 pixels--now updated to point sizes.) Add more space around targets and links.

“I had no idea that was there and it could do that.”
Issue: Poor affordance. Things don’t look touchable or interactive causing low discoverability.
Fix It:  Visually communicate what something does. Make things look tappable and relevant to the task the user wants to accomplish.

“What’s taking so long?”
Issue: Assumptions about connections and bandwidth.
Fix It:  Do what you can do remove what isn’t needed, reduce file sizes and communicate what’s happening when there are delays.

“Ugh. I don’t want to fill in all that information.”
Issue: Forced typing and difficult data entry.
Fix It:  If input is required, help lessen the pain. Provide selection menus and options, auto-fill information when possible, and be tolerant of typos.

“Where am I? How do I get back?”
Issue: Too much navigation and tiers of content.
Fix It:  Aim for more content and less navigation for smaller screens. Flatten the structure to reduce levels so users don’t get lost and do some more editing too—no doubt there’s more you can remove.

“Don’t tell me to download the latest Flash version.”
Issue: Technologies that don’t work across device platforms and limit accessibility.
Fix It:  Use HTML5 for mobile design or other approaches for rendering content and supporting files (videos, PDFs) across devices and systems. (But first know your users’ devices because feature phones are still a factor.)

“Where is that [feature, info, function] I saw before on the full site?”
Issue: Removing content based on “mobile is on the go” scenario and not actual use-cases with your audience.
Fix It:  Mobile doesn’t mean a device is being used in a truly mobile situation. Make content access quick and easy but don’t assume what’s needed—find out.

“Ack! Stop redirecting me to the mobile site.”
Issue: No way for users to select their preference.
Fix It:  Device-detection is helpful but shouldn’t be inescapable. Allow users to overview mobile version or link to the full desktop site. (And if you are prompting downloading an app, be polite and just ask once.)

“This is harder than the desktop site.”
Issue: Users accustomed to corresponding websites find things more difficult or incomplete.
Fix It:  Don’t make things so dissimilar that a user can’t transition. If you’re lucky, users may use your desktop (or in Google’s terms, “classic”), mobile site, and app, and the experience should be integrated. Adapt tasks and content as appropriate.

That’s all I have to say. What are your users saying? Great designs speak for themselves. Poor designs make users speak for them.

Related Posts on B2B Mobile:
- Investing in Mobile Design: Fact to Convince You
- Optimizing Your B2B Website for Mobile: What it Means and How to Start
- Native App or Web App Pros and Cons
- Designing B2B Mobile Experiences: The One Thing You Must Know

 Related Articles:
- UX Magazine: Mobile UX is more than on the Go
- UX Matters: Designing for Mobile Web Special Considerations
- ars technica: Content-focused iPad apps value form over function
- Nielsen iPad Usability Study Findings