Little Springs Design | Blog

Contexts of Use

Apparently, attachments. And by the icon, I even expect it to be recognized and opened by the Acrobat reader.

I use the Gmail app on my n95 quite a bit; not like some folks, but still a few times a week, and typically somewhere I don't have the laptop or other internet access. I increasingly use the "phone" as a full-on mobile computing device. In fact I'm using it to type this post as a draft as I'm out to dinner (Alison is used to me not paying attention, and just drinks more instead).

The phone has a file system, and most of the apps that I'd want to support this behavior it either came with or were a snap to find and install. But Gmail does not really support this in one key area. I often want to at least look at attachments (ideally, add, modify, etc.), but this is functionally impossible.

This is sad – and a good design lesson – because the Google folks apparently tried too hard. See, they made preview modules within Gmail. That are kinda awful, yes, but mostly bad because they are the only way to view attachments. And this is particularly sad to me because they actually spent the time to make this, whereas the let-the-phone-handle-it system comes for free.

The preview inside Gmail is totally text, not very useful for these illustrated instructions.

While the gmail team did a lot of things right in mobilizing (not miniaturizing) their desktop web interface, they went overboard on the mobile and missed the most likely context, which seems to be that any phone which can install the gmail app can install other apps, and probably has a file system. I'm talking about "smartphones," and a perception problem we encounter a fair amount around here: that while my blackberry/winmob/iphone is brilliant, frankly everyone else is an idiot and carries some stupid featurephone. And they need all the help that we can give them.

My phone, as the examples demonstrate, has a terrific PDF viewer. The Gmail viewer throws up a plain-text version instead. A few times I have wanted to review something in Word (or worse, Word Perfect, still used by the DOJ and a few others) when I am out of the office. I actually have QuickOffice, which should let me read anything at least a little. But without the ability to download from email I cannot get to the file in any useful manner.

Your customers might be similar. Some are going to be on five year old phones with no features and memory. Some are going to have the latest and greatest. Most will be in the middle somewhere. And with increasingly more capabilities by default (the line for what defines smartphone is a bit fuzzy these days) it's a lot more about context, not of device capabilities, but of the user and what they expect their device to do for them.

The Adobe PDF viewer does a bang up job. Better yet when I flip sideways, but that's a bit of a cheat for this example.

Okay, enough being mean to Google. Lots of apps do this, just in subtle ways. Or so, so, very badly I de-install them within three days. When deciding how actual people will use your product, don't make assumptions off the top of your head, or think of how you (road warrior!) and your mom (safety user!) use the phone. Go look up research on it. Make sure it's recent, accurate and about your customers or at least your locale. Hire someone (yeah sure, like us) to help you understand where customers are today. Try to plan ahead, so there's time to actually perform your own research, and see what your customers really want. It'll (usually) save you money in the end, not just from happy customers but directly in lower development, test and deployment costs.

I can see the thought process in providing the previewer because I have helped execute this sort of mistake in the distant past. Adding features is not always a good thing, so spend the time to understand your true goals, and your users so you can deliver what is needed, built the right way, and no more.

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Contexts of Use

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