A study on the user experience with regard to navigation and orientation on (mobile) websites

Optimal user experience on all devices?

For some years now, responsive web design (RWD) has been propagated as the silver bullet for stationary and mobile websites. In our everyday research work, we often see the gap between what’s desirable and what’s feasible. For us a good enough reason to explore the question of “What does it actually look like, the ‘ideal’ user experience on all devices?” in greater depth. 

To this end, we scrutinised in a two-tier study the websites of four automotive companies (BMW, Porsche, Skoda, Toyota) – representing companies with complex products, correspondingly high informational content and numerous hierarchical menu levels.

Three golden rules

The objective was to derive specific recommendations for action for a cross-device concept and to point out practical solutions for an optimised user experience, from the smallest (smartphone) to the largest device (desktop).

The result? Three golden rules and a bagful of detailed recommendations for implementation:

• Same amount of content for mobile devices and desktop
• Similar site structure and look & feel on all end devices for sustainable learnability
• Navigation mechanics must be adapted to end devices

The results were already presented at the “Mensch und Computer” conference and the “Usability” congress and were discussed and amplified within the scope of a number of agency workshops.