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Comment by iridium | Hacker News Reader

Good points, but I dont agree with this:

>> 14. Design for mobile first (even if a mobile app is not in your roadmap). The constraints of a mobile context will force you to focus on what’s essential, and help you cut what’s not needed. The question “How would I design this as a mobile app?” always clears my head and helps me find the simpler, elegant solution.

Unless you are primarily designing a mobile app, this ends up shortchanging the web user. A full web interface can always do more and the challenge should be converting those features to mobile as opposed to dumbing down the design for the lowest denominator.

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If you agree with point 27 (questing for Minimum Viable Product/Experience), then rule 14 makes a lot of sense to me. He isn't saying not to design a full web interface (which as you point out, can do more). He is merely saying by doing mobile dev first, you are essentially forced into discovering your MVP more lucidly. You can then add features to the full web interface from there.

>A full web interface can always do more and the challenge should be converting those features to mobile as opposed to dumbing down the design for the lowest denominator.

I think that this sentence gets to the crux of his point. Terms like 'dumbing down' and 'lowest common denominator' to describe the mobile experience seem a little loaded to me, and imho, this is exactly the type of situation where deving movile first could provide surprising insight into your MVP. I'm talking honest to goodness slap in the face reveals.

I think it's safe to say we have different opinions on this point, but man...I simply can't count the number of "Hey check out my startup" websites that I've clicked on and just kind of had my jaw drop at what was going on. I'd honestly say the majority of the ones I've seen could have benefited from this approach. That's completely anecdotal, I know, but it's the impression I have.

I agree with MVP and your anecdotes - less bloat, all the better, but from a UI/UX perspective, let me give you a few examples of what usually gets thrown out in a mobile first design:

Dropdown menus - Mobile first almost always means multiple clicks to get to the same place, which is more annoying on a slower browser.

Commenting system - still yet to see a decent one that I would one on a mobile interface

Flash/animations - like it or not, moving images grabs attention but does not translate well to mobile.

Page width - 1440 pixels on my shiny screen, but text is stuck in a 200px box that forces me to scroll down. Flexible width usually gets thrown out when you add sidebars and ads.

Large Buttons - Great for mobile but I'd rather see context that a sign up button taking half the page

Related content links - Especially for blogs/news websites.

Inline images - My primary annoyance with this article which is ALL TEXT. Mobile design says dont take up an entire screen view with an image. Web first design says even if the current text is boring, people will scroll down if they see an interesting image.

I honestly believe that having separate approaches will allow for better UX, time and cost permitting.

>let me give you a few examples of what usually gets thrown out in a mobile first design:

Ah, but you aren't throwing them out. You're using a constrained UI to identify your MVP, then adding those very features in to the full web site where it makes sense. We're looking at the exact same behavior and using almost opposite language to describe it :)

>I honestly believe that having separate approaches will allow for better UX, time and cost permitting.

Fair enough.

>Commenting system - still yet to see a decent one that I would one on a mobile interface

On a side note, I passionately agree with this. I think there is a tremendous opportunity out there for anybody that can solve this problem elegantly. Group communication is a fundamental human behavior, and so much of it is happening via our mobile devices. There's a much better mousetrap to be built here.

Here is a solid book about mobile first development:

http://www.abookapart.com/products/mobile-first

It's a good (and quick) read, even if you don't agree with it, as are all of the A Book Apart publications.

It's not dumbing down, it's simplifying. By designing mobile first, you force yourself to think about the priorities in your UX. You can still add all kind of things on top in the full web interface, but that's on top of the core experience.

Around three years ago I postulated that websites will soon start to develop their mobile version first and not second. Little by little I keet seeing more examples and the last year it has really been accelerating. It is an interesting time and while many besides yourself will find offense with this "rule" I would expect more of it in the future.

That one bothered me too. For someone so focused on the experience, it seems narrow to think of focusing on one platform that admittedly, might not even be used. Shouldn't you be focused on building the best experience on the intended platform?

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