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Consumers Prefer Mobile Portals to Web Portals: Study

By Narayan Bhat, TMCnet Contributor

Consumers find interest in mobile portals of wireless operators more than that of portals run by media giants like AOL and MSN, according to a new report issued by the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media (News - Alert) Lab.

 

Respondents suggested that mobile portals run by Sprint, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA are easy to navigate and they offer features that most consumers are looking for.

 

Since they do not offer music or game downloads, AOL (News - Alert) and MSN portals scored low, officials say.

 

Mobile portal refers to brower-based web services such as the World Wide Web and WAP using a mobile device such as a cell phone, PDA or other portable gadget connected to a public network.

 

Kevin Nolan, Vice President, User Experience Practice at Strategy Analytics (News - Alert) commented, "Strategy Analytics found that users want portal homepages that are compact, and that provide direct and intuitive pathways to features that are of most interest and relevance to them.”

 

Some respondents found Sprint's 'On Demand' interface appealing, but some were concerned that the layout was too basic and had sacrificed too much information for the sake of a simple look.

 

"Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless appears to have made little progress in improving the discoverability of its mobile portal or services since Strategy Analytics' previous US mobile portal evaluation in 2007,” said Christopher Dodge, User Experience Analyst at Strategy Analytics.

 

However, he said, once users discover the portal, they generally expect its layout and structure to be clear, consistent and engaging.

 

In Germany, according to another study by the research, consumers appear to be favoring mobile operator portal from T-Mobile (News - Alert) over portal offerings from E-Plus, O2, Vodafone, and non-operators MSN and WEB.DE.

Narayan Bhat is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Narayan’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jessica Kostek