There are literally hundreds of websites, books and companies specializing in website usability, but when it comes to usability standards for the iPhone there’s not very many places one can turn for advice. When you consider the key differences inherent in using a finger to navigate as opposed to a mouse or the reduced resolution available to present your website content, it becomes evident established standards are a necessity. For example, you may use a script to detect users visiting your site from an iPhone, however that is just half of the equation. How should your website react once it has identified one of these visitors? The answer to this question lies in what sort of experience you intend to present to your users.
Don’t Shut your Users Out
How should you appropriately respond to iPhone visitors? Generally speaking, you want to enhance your presentation for these users without detracting from their regular browsing experience. Think about it, why do people come to your website? It’s because they are looking for something, most likely information. Don’t shut them out of portions of your website unnecessarily, just because of their choice of browsing platform.
Your goal is to provide these visitors optimized content in a familiar context, namely an iPhone friendly interface – but if they would like to view you regular website from their iPhone, that’s fine too.
The user experience of a redirection that confines iPhone viewers to the site’s mobile version is reminiscent of turn of the century browser sizing scripts that hijacked users screens and forced them to fixed dimensions (or worse, required they use a certain browser). Sure, the site you were presenting was “optimized” for the viewer. One problem with this technique though is it gives no consideration to the users needs – viewing another website at a higher resolution without closing the window for example. This problem was complicated even further with the suppression of the windows scrollbars, effectively locking the view of the window and frustrating users visiting your site. The advent of tabbed browsing served to complicate the experience further.
I recommend presenting your visitors the option of viewing your regular website, either through a prompt when visiting for the first time (you can set a cookie to record the preference) or in some context of the microsite itself, such as the footer. This puts them in control and makes the user feel welcome.
Another option is to modify your regular website by providing a hyperlink to iPhone visitors only, allowing them to view the iPhone-optimized version. This is accomplished by combining browser detection with a content block that is only displayed to these users.
By allowing your iPhone visitors access to your regular website in addition to your iPhone Microsite, you truly provide them an advantage many of your competitors do not yet enjoy. Your microsite will add value to your website without detracting from the traditional experience, and making your customers feel welcome is a key principal of successful user design.
