8 REASONS WHY A MOBILE FORM IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM A DESKTOP FORM

When you think about it, designing a form for a desktop/laptop is VERY different from designing a form for a mobile device. Why? Here are eight fundamental differences that need to be accounted for: 

• On a desktop you have the use of two hands, on a mobile device you typically only have one hand (the other one is holding the mobile device.)

• On a desktop you have a mouse, on a mobile device you do not.

• On a desktop you have a large amount of screen real estate, on a mobile device you do not.

• On a desktop you have the use a physical keyboard, on a mobile device you have a software keyboard that is competing for space on the screen with the form and interfering with smooth and efficient data entry.

• On a desktop you have a live connection to a server, on a mobile device you have to make your form work even if there is no Wifi/4G/3G.

• On a desktop you typically don’t have a camera for taking pictures, video and voice recordings, on a mobile device you do.

• On a desktop you are not going to enhance the form with electronic ink, on a mobile device electronic ink can add real value to a form in terms of drawings, sketches, markup and annotation.

• On a desktop you generally do not have location and date/time stamp awareness, on a mobile device you do.

It is for these fundamental reasons we designed “mobile optimized forms for rich data capture” in order to increase productivity and we have included this capability as a core part of Alpha Anywhere – our rapid mobile (and web) application development platform for building offline capable mobile enterprise apps.

 Check out this article and video and contact [email protected] if you want more info or to get a demo.