While there are many benefits to mobile, there are also challenges that the UX practitioner needs to overcome.
• Small screens. Even the largest smartphones are screens many times smaller than a standard laptop (and tablets fall somewhere between the two). This, quite simply, means that the user has a much smaller window through which to perceive and understand the website, so it’s difficult to get an overall impression of where things are or what’s important.
• Difficult inputs.Mobile phones don’t come with full-sized keyboards and mouses, so they are usually a lot more difficult to operate fluidly and accurately than desktop computers (touchscreens may be the exception here, although they also have their own pitfalls).
• Slow connection speeds.Many mobile phone users, especially in developing countries, are on slow Internet connections – and even fast options such as 3G can often be more sluggish than a desktop
equivalent. This makes loading large websites or images slow and frustrating – and also expensive in terms of data costs.
• Slow hardware. Sometimes the slowness comes from the hardware itself – the more basic the phone, the slower its processing components are likely to be, making the simple act of opening the browser and loading a page time consuming.
