I enjoyed reading A Loose Heuristic for Mobile Design on UXBooth. The full article is worth the 5 minutes it will take to read, but here’s most of the heuristics in bullet form [with a few comments by me in brackets]:

  • Simplicity is a requirement [not just a “good idea”]
  • Balance brevity and comprehension [don’t throw the baby out with the bath water by stripping out necessary context]
  • Understand, then optimize, your core value proposition [don’t try to do everything your desktop version does]
  • “Where” is more important than “who” [understand physical context]
  • Assume terrible dexterity [favorite quote: “give it to a young/drunk/old person and see how they do.”]
  • The footer is a dead zone [don’t waste time on it!]
  • Assume distracted, disrupted, and intermittent use
  • Good experience is a subset of performance [it’s gotta be snappy]
  • Provide access to the “desktop” version [like it or not, the “non-optimized” version will still work better for some people, depending on familiarity, performance, device, etc.]
  • Test on as many devices as possible

Continue reading at the original source →