Tablet vs Desktop design
I woke up this morning and saw in my emails an email from WhichTestWon with a subject line:
Test of the week: Is Tablet & Desktop Behaviour Similar.
I was excited as I love WhichTestWon and always enjoy their emails. I am a huge fan of A/B Testing and I have worked on a few projects where we have optimised designs for tablet with great results.
I opened the email on my mobile and then decided to wait until I got to work to read it properly. The main reason for this is because their emails aren't designed for mobile so reading it on my iphone was more effort that I was prepared to muster at 7am.
This behaviour should answer the question in their email. I use different devices differently and if content is not specifically designed for a device then I am are less likely to read it.
Responsive design is great if you are on a browser resizing the window watching all the cool transitions but that’s about all it is good for. The web has moved past this. Sites should serve different content based on the device it is being viewed on. Or better yet show a device appropriate layout.
The WhichTestWon test went something like the below.
On a desktop which layout converted better: an award winning tablet design Version A or Version B.
Version A
Version B
To me this was a no brainer. Version B is the winner with Version A actually decreasing sales by 2.5%.
We used to think people behave similarly on a desktop and a tablet but they don't as shown by this test. Tablets should have their own customised design that is different to desktop.
