An open letter to Jakob Nielsen: Don’t write off mobile apps - it's not that simple

Paul Squires, MD of Perini Networks and TheMediaBriefing contributor, thinks it’s not as simple as choosing mobile websites over apps and has this to say in response to a controversial article recently posted online by usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

Dear Jakob,

Let me start by confessing: I’m a fan. Your 1990 book Hypertext and Hypermedia takes pride of place in my bookshelf. I’m a long-time subscriber and reader to Alertbox. However, your latest article is… well, it’s challenging. Half of me wants to accept it on face value because it’s by you. But half of me thinks that it is for the most part erroneous.

My problems with it start at the most fundamental level: the title. Basically, Jakob, it’s not very usable. It tackles a well-known strategic quandary in mobile development: “Are apps or websites the way to go?” but there is no either/or about it. There’s no harm in developing both.

All of the websites which we ship to clients here at Perera are mobile-friendly, and if a client is keen on additional functionality then we will work with them to determine as to whether we build a bespoke app, or an HTML5 mobile app. What the either/or process implies is that the development of apps is at the expense of websites. I saw a brand-new, expensive website (not developed by us) last week which had no mobile provision at all. If the agency goes back and tells the client that providing mobile compliance can only be in the form of an app – inevitably costing thousands more – then they need to be taken out and shot.

The simple fact is that most websites will be looked at, at some point, on a mobile device – whether they were planned to be or not. My feeling is that we should help customers through that experience, and to help clients with their business cases.

With this in mind, I’m not surprised by your observations on the mobile form factor. You claim that mobile offers an “improverished user experience”. However, for many, it is now the default user experience. We’re happy with a downgrading of the experience if we can understand its context and conditions. We understand why we have “tiny screens, slow connectivity, higher interaction cost” and the “fat-finger problem” which I myself am all too aware of.

You later discuss platforming, with the following statement:

“The expense of mobile apps will increase because there will be more platforms to develop for. At a minimum, you’ll have to support Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Furthermore, many of these platforms will likely fork into multiple subplatforms that require different apps for a decent user experience. [...] Amazon.com’s recent introduction of the Kindle Fire effectively forked the Android user experience with a fairly different platform.

“And, as our Kindle Fire usability study concluded, you need a separate app with a separate UI to deliver decent usability on this nonstandard device that’s selling like hotcakes.”

Jakob, we have always had divergence. Tech loves it: Java versus C++, Netscape versus IE, Spectrum versus C64. The ecosystems being built by Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon suggest greater proprietary divergence rather than less. The simple answer to this problem is to prepare for anticipated eventualities. Your observation about forking Android into the Kindle Fire doesn’t really stack. Android itself is one of over 260 Linux forks. Kindle Fire apps share much of the Android codebase. Formats and forks are part of what we do. I would be surprised if systems didn’t fork, frankly.

On payment, you make the claim that “pseudo-micropayment [in apps] …is harder to achieve over the public Internet“, but elsewhere you refer to FT’s mobile web app as an example of a publisher “tired of having a huge share of subscription revenues confiscated by app store owners”. Which is it to be? The FT has proven its brilliant subscription model into a non-native app, and I expect content-rich publishers to make similar consider considerations over time. Again, it’s not as cut and dry as app-versus-web.

My letter concludes with your conclusion:

“I do believe mobile sites will win over mobile apps in the long-term. But when that will happen is less certain. Today, if you are serious about creating the best possible mobile user experience, my advice is to develop apps.”

As I said at the beginning, you’re over-simplifying a strategy which for many is nuanced, subtle, and perhaps rather complex. But, as one of the world’s foremost usability consultants, I expect that reducing complex ideas to simple outcomes is very much part of what you do. I’m afraid that here, it didn’t work.

Paul Squires is managing director of advertising agency Perera.