A new study has shown that in the creation of mobile websites and mobile applications, the two main priorities that should be maintained by government agencies are a defined goal and the development of a unique mobile user experience.
The report was entitled the Mobile Development Guidelines for Government Agencies and it offered an analysis tool and a number of best practices to help a government agency to decide whether it would be best served by a mobile website or a mobile app. Moreover, it provided an evaluation of 30 different government mobile applications that are already available to users of iTunes and provides recommendations about ways that a successful mobile experience can be created.
The report was published by a digital marketing agency named White Horse. Among its primary findings was that there is frequently too much focus placed by the federal government on placing the apps online and not enough on the actual experience of the user who downloads them.
According to an email written by the study’s author, Will Reese, who is also the head of the Digital Futures Group at White Horse, this same trend is also occurring in the private sector, but the firm hadn’t anticipated seeing it among government agencies, too. He stated that “Typically, somebody has an idea stemming from their own experience and imagines that it justifies creating an app.”
Reese called this phenomenon the “wouldn’t it be cool if” factor. Though this may be an effective way to obtain inspiration, it needs greater depth in order to justify the creation of an app.
