A recent Pew Internet and American Life report shows nearly 75% of American’s are using using location services on phones. The year over year trend shows usage up from 55% to 74% – a 35% increase in use. The survey differentiated between those who used “location services” – getting directions vs. “geosocial services” – checking into FourSquare. A significant finding shows more use of location vs geosocial by a huge margin 74% vs 18%.
This increase in location services use directly coincides with smartphone penetration, which is now at 50% of US mobile subscribers.
Implications
What are the implications for mobile website content and design? Simple – people want to easily access location-specific information. We think those organizations that provide location information in a mobile form will be rewarded. Fortunately, Mojaba not only provides a number of location-based features, they are quick and easy to implement.
Mojaba Location Features
Mojaba supports one or more locations in a mobile website. When you think of mulitple locations, think of a business with multiple retail locations. (Take a look at one of the business sites with multiple retail locations created with Mojaba – Vogue Vision. Visit m.voguevision.com on a smartphone and try out the location features)
The Location screen in Mojaba. Completing this information enables reuse in a number of forms in the mobile website.
Each Location has the following data (as seen in the screenshot above):
- Address (including country and county/province)
- Time Zone
- Special Notes (e.g., “parking in back”)
- Open Hours
Location Element (l) provides mapping of locations on the phone. Location Info Element (r) shows the same data in textual form.
When building the mobile site, the Location Element provides:
- Location or Locations plotted on a Map
- Nearest Location Button
- Nearest Open Location Button
- Call a Location Button
- Map the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
- Directions to the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
The Location Info element provides a different view of the the following:
- Address Text
- Special Notes
- Open Hours
- Call a Location Button
- Map the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
- Directions to the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
All mapping functions tie into the applications of the phone. Here we see mapping the location (l) and getting directions to the location (r) using the built-in Apple iOS application.
In addition, Mojaba Analytics record and report a range of geolocation information:
- Street-level location of end users accessing the mobile website*
- Location of end-user when they used the Find Nearest, Find Nearest Open, Get Directions and Click-to-Call features of the mobile website
*All end-user location data recording is permission-based
One screen from the Mojaba analytics showing the street-level location of end-users when they accessed the mobile website.
Using the Location Features
- Create the Client Record
- Create the Website Record
- Create all locations to be used in the website
- Add the locations to the website
- Build the website in the Mojaba AppBuilder
- Drag and Drop the Location elements to use for this site
- Preview the website
- Purchase the subscription and then Publish the mobile website
The location features are some of the most powerful and widely used aspects of Mojaba mobile websites. The Pew study referenced at the start of this post proves that people absolutely want to use their smartphones to help them locate, contact and get to places. With Mojaba, there’s no reason to not provide these compelling benefits to your clients today.