Things to Consider Before Diving into Mobile

By now it's obvious that the effects of a poor mobile experience are both immediate and far-reaching for business. A frustrating and not-so-user-friendly mobile interaction with your site could mean loss of brand loyalty and potential business.

How can you offer a mobile user-centric experience that will serve your customers both in the present and future? A responsive website is definitely a good start. But before you consider native or hybrid apps, take a step back and think about what would be the best fit for your business.

The challenge is to carefully plan and execute on a long-term mobile strategy. This means doing research on your customers who are using mobile devices. In your research, consider some of these specific factors: 

  • Demographics. Who are the people you are serving, and what are their habits or preferences? Consider this: only 12% of Brazil’s population regularly browses the web on their mobile devices (as opposed to 40% for the 11 other countries in the survey). Many companies want to build a mobile app or make their site mobile-friendly, but a certain strategy that works for one demographic might not work for another.
  • Expectations. What are your visitors' expectations and how are they going to use the app? Maybe your product needs to be available in places where connectivity is a problem, or maybe you want native device capabilities like GPS. Knowing how users interact with you will help you determine whether to invest your efforts and resources into developing a certain app.  
  • Multiscreening. How does your web experience render across various touchpoints? According to a Google study, many customers are using a multi-device path to complete a transaction. Try to prioritize the strategy of providing a consistent experience across devices; when developing a mobile app, make sure it integrates with other touchpoints.
Being able to address and answer these sorts of questions will give you a better idea of what you may or may not need to do in the moment. 

We’ll be diving deeper into mobile strategies and development tools at the Liferay Symposium in Chicago. (We’ll also be featuring workshops on Liferay Screens and Mobile SDK). If you haven’t already, we highly encourage you to register and gain some great insight about the mobile experience. 

Come out to Liferay Symposium 2015! 

Whether you are looking for user tips or simply deciding if Liferay is a good fit, the Liferay Symposium will provide you with answers and resources on the topics of enterprise productivity and mobility. Use code MOBILE15 to get 15% off registration.

Register now