It is a given today that any business or government agency needs some sort of online presence. The need for a website varies widely, from e-commerce to social networking and product information. Regardless of the reason, businesses and government agencies need to consider that many of its cyberspace visitors are coming from a mobile device.
It is estimated that 20 percent of Internet traffic involves a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. Web titans such as PayPal, Facebook and Amazon report an ever increasing number of mobile-based visitors. What’s even more astounding is that many folks never use a traditional computer (PC or Mac) to visit such sites. As such, it is expected that mobile-only traffic will continue to increase dramatically.
Why mobile-only? Mobile devices, by their definition, are small and thus harder to read and navigate. On top of this, the apps are typically less robust than what traditional applications or websites provide. Some of this is related to size, but processing power and interface limitations also factor into application functionality.
The fact of the matter is it comes down to convenience, much like cellphones: The reduced quality of the call is offset by the handiness of the unit. People put up with dropped calls and poor call quality as a matter of rote nowadays. "I’m sorry, you broke up there, can you repeat that?" is quite possibly the most common phrase uttered on a mobile phone conversation, and rarely is it said with acrimony nowadays. Despite the fact that a land line almost never "breaks up," its usage is way down.
Nowadays, watching TV on a tablet is a common event. This seems incongruent with the advent of relatively cheap, high-quality, high-definition televisions. Anyone who has watched TV on a tablet knows that it is prone to jumpiness and freezing, not to mention the small screen size. So why do it? Convenience. You can’t take your HD TV to the beach, the gym or the coffee shop. Nor can most folks have an HD TV in every room of their house.
The bottom line is that if folks are willing to put up with the limited quality of phone calls and TV, they will also put up with limited functionality of software. Anyone with an online presence cannot ignore smartphone and tablet users. The experience does not need to be as robust as from a traditional device, but it does need to be there.
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John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 25 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be reached at johnagsalud@yahoo.com.
