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When putting together the requirements for delivering content to a person using a mobile device, think of each of the following:

• Who are your users? What type of behaviour can you assume or predict?
• What is happening? What are the circumstances in which they will best absorb the content you intend to present?
• When will they interact?
• At home, they have more time;
• At work, people generally interact for short periods;
• In idle moments, while in a queue
• Where are they?
• In public, will not want to view private data or are they likely to be in private?
• Are they inside or outside
• Why will they use your application? What value will they gain?

Compare this with the who, when, where, what and how for a journalist story.

Keep the solution simple. Define what the users want and eliminate everything else. In navigation, put the most popular option at the top of the list and give direct access to the option(s).

The author wants to end the design myth by asserting that people do not respond to visual asthetic as much as you think. After first impressions, it is layout, taxonomy (what things are called), findability of content, how intuitive it is to perform tasks that are important. So focus on information architecture first, before design. When developing for a mobile, first decide what you want to present, then look at how to position this on the screen (layout). Test the layout with actual size paper prototypes. For a better end product, create images of the layout and go outside, if that is where the mobile application will be used and check that it works in this environment. Once these have been done, design (style) the application.

Use a native application, program written for the mobile device rather a web application, if one of the following reasons apply:

• If you want to charge for it
• Location of user is required for the application
• Need to store or use user data. Only use in small doses and ask permission. Otherwise your application can be viewed as span/malicious and operators may pull your app.

Make sure your application works when there is no signal. A user could start with full signal and end with no signal.

For browser applications note that Javascript and AJAX drains the devices battery.

When designing your application consider whether the web experience look match the devices style or your own style.

Did you know the iPhone users spend longer on a page and view more pages on a web site than computer browsers?

Because there are still major difficulties in building applications that will work on all devices it is recommended to start by creating for one devices. Consider the following "tricks":

• Code symatically (use mark-up to describe the content) - ensure the page is usable without stylesheets.
• Device plan, know which devices you intend to support.
• Have both lower common denominator and high-end device designs before you begin. Try to visualise a way to create both from one code base.
• Test on different mobile devices from the start.
• If adding a desktop layer, always create the mobile first.