Re: Mobile, Web and Multi-device

On 18/09/2013 10:04, Bryan Rieger wrote:
> Users tend to interact with various sites/apps/services with whatever
> device is at-hand.
>
> They might begin an interaction with their phone only to pick it up a
> few hours later on their laptop and eventually finish the interaction
> on their tablet sitting on the sofa in-front of their TV. While the
> user does indeed move from context to context, so does the
> site/application itself - ideally maintaining the users state,
> preferences, etc. but presenting the user with an interface that
> makes sense in that context.
>
> In this sense, it's not only the user that is mobile - but more
> importantly the site/application as it conforms to the features and
> constraints present in *every (device) context* the user decides to
> interact with it.

In a very limited, embryonic sense (minus the act of maintaining state), 
I find that the browser tab syncing as it can be found in Firefox and 
Chrome (strangely, Opera had a powerful sync feature for ages, before 
all the others, but never got to the actual "tabs" sync stage) is a 
first iteration of this concept: you're browsing something on device A, 
then later you can pick up where you left off on device B ("show me 
which tabs were open on device A").

Maintaining state would be the next step, and - security and privacy 
issues notwithstanding - can probably be achieved with current 
technologies (as an aside, I'm always surprised by shopping sites that 
only use a local, often cookie based, cart even when the user is logged 
in...I often end up putting things in a cart for a tentative purchase, 
forget about it, switch to another device, and the items aren't in my 
cart on the second device...or the surprise of reopening that shopping 
site weeks later on the first device and noticing that the cart 
indicates I've stashed potential items for purchase away there. Surely, 
for logged-in users, carts should be stored server-side and synchronised 
across all devices?)

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
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Received on Wednesday, 18 September 2013 09:34:59 UTC