5 minute post – when is an app needed?

I’m going to start a new experiment with this blog. 5 minute posts. 5 minutes to write them, hopefully only 5 minutes to read them.

I’ve been talking about apps a lot recently. I’ve just read Digital by Default by SOCITM in which it states that it’s little flash up survey dialogue box responses say 8% of respondents have downloaded an app. It goes on to state apps are ‘popular’.

Reaching 8% of your audience as a result of at least a £500 initial investment (and that’s for an app done as a test piece by a bunch of local students) of public money, seems to me, madness. There must be better ways to spend £500 to communicate, broadcast or permit residents to report problems over the web.

I’d like to propose that it comes in the more boring and yet effective way of providing a version of your webpage which recognises when it’s being accessed by a mobile phone and automatically presents a stripped down webpage, limited scrollbar usage needed to navigate with no images, only text, and the top 10 tasks for your site displayed right at the top. Along with a phone number.

That last sentence, by the way, is almost entirely based on the contents and learning from that SOCITM report. So it is worth reading.

5 minutes. Done.

Original post