What’s Your Web

Author
Souvik Das Gupta
Published
Event
Meta Refresh 2015
Location & Date
·Bangalore, India

The beauty of the web is in its ubiquity. Its unparalleled reach isn’t a mere co-incidence — rather, a 26 year long journey of consciously embracing the principles of inclusiveness. The minimal hardware and software requirements have enabled most electronic devices today to connect to the web. At the forefront are mobiles which have surpassed their predecessors, laptops and desktops, quite emphatically.

Today, user experience on a mobile device affects way more people than any other device. With several low cost smartphones out in the market the web has been brought within reach of lower sections of the socio-economic pyramid — many for the very first time. In fact, for a large portion of the population, inexpensive mobiles connected to the internet over flaky mobile data connections are their only window to the web.

Mobiles are a hard problem — in many ways it’s like going back a few years in terms of device power and capabilities. Even though we – the web designers and developers – largely acknowledge that mobiles are omnipresent, the user experience challenge these devices pose is often conveniently reduced down to an afterthought. And as a result, the state of mobile browsing continues to be in a mess with endless examples of essential services like banks assuming that users have the privilege of accessing a desktop or a laptop over a fast and reliable connection.

We have ensured that key services are available to you on the mobile website. For other services, please continue to desktop login. — m.icicibank.com

At Meta Refresh 2015, I shared a peek into what constitutes today’s web eco-system. A check on the real world impact of poor mobile web experiences — something we perhaps underestimate. It’s a call out to the community to own up the unremarkable state of mobile web, make the right compromises going forward and refuse to budge even though it may sound unrealistic and drastic.