European Parliament goes mobile – when to choose a mobile website over a native app

Earlier this month the European Parliament launched the mobile version of its ever popular (at least in the Brussels bubble) website. Hooray! Forgot the room number of the MEP you are meeting? Well now you can go on your mobile device and find it with ease.

In seeing the new site, we asked ourselves why an organisation would choose a mobile website rather than one of those trendy apps we spend far too much time (and money) downloading for our iPad/iPhones? Well, call us curious, but we decided to phone a friend far more knowledgeable than ourselves to find the answer. Gwen Foutz, SVP and Director of Mobile and Social Platforms in our Washington D.C. office and global co-chair of FH Mobile practice group happily picked up the phone. Here’s what she had to say.

What’s the difference between a native app and a mobile website?

A native application is an application designed and built for a specific operating system, e.g. iPhone iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, etc., that users download and install to their devices. A mobile website (or mobile web application) is essentially a mobile optimized website – a site designed specifically for the smaller screen and mobile context. Mobile websites are accessed through a URL and work across all web-enabled mobile devices.

Is there anything you can do with one that you can’t do with the other?

Mobile websites provide the best opportunity for a single platform to reach a majority of mobile devices with an enhanced experience, including lower-end devices not considered smartphones. Mobile websites can vary in complexity from static, information-based experiences to more robust, feature-based experiences similar to those of native applications.

Mobile apps provide the most feature-rich approach for mobile as they offer access to native device features such as GPS functionality and cameras. An app generates the highest level of engagement through an ideal mobile user experience that is tailored to the specific device it was built for. However, with the advancements that HTML5 has brought to the mobile space, the line between what is possible with mobile web vs. native apps continues to blur. More and more developers are building application-like experiences via the mobile web that can be accessed through the browser.

When would FH’s Digital Practice counsel an organisation to use one rather than the other?

We first ask the organization three critical questions before recommending a mobile solution:
1) Who is your target audience?
2) What are you trying to achieve with mobile and how does that fit with your overall business objectives?
3) How will you tell people about it?

Based on the organization’s goals and resources as well as audience research and insights, we may recommend an optimized mobile website, a native app, a text message campaign or all of the above.

Mobile optimized websites really should be seen as a starting point for most organizations before jumping into the mobile app space. Main company “.com” websites should be viewable and usable from any device, especially as mobile browsers become users’ primary browsers. Furthermore, mobile web provides the largest reach, regardless of the type of phone people are using and allows you to be found the same ways users find you on the desktop web (via direct URLs or search).

Native apps are recommended (as an addition to a mobile website) to serve a focused purpose that addresses a user need – usually in the form of providing utility or entertainment. Apps are chosen over mobile web when there is a need to offer robust functionality and features, such as those that are transactional in nature (e.g. shopping, banking), highly customizable or account-based services (e.g. photo tools, cooking/recipe assistants, travel tools), entertainment focused (e.g. streaming video and music, games) and those that are used frequently (e.g. social networking, mapping/navigation services).

What’s the easiest to develop, mobile website or app? Is the process very different?

Mobile websites typically require less overall effort to design and develop, and have a much larger reach than native apps alone. They are also easier to update and maintain once released, as updates can be pushed to all users at once and accessed via the browser, rather than a user having to download and install a new version.

Native apps have to be built platform by platform (i.e. iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc.) – there is no one size fits all – which requires a significant investment. Each version of the app across platforms can and should share similar user experience and design aspects, but ultimately will be built independently. Another factor is that apps have to be selected by the user, usually from an app store, which requires a significant investment in promotion and awareness-building to make people aware that it exists.

Is it common practice for public institutions to use mobile websites rather than apps?

Yes, it is fairly common for public institutions to provide mobile websites rather than apps. This is due to usually having limited development and promotional budgets and a desire to reach the widest audience possible. If the public institution desires to provide a more robust experience, they may go the native app route, but at the cost of reaching less people with their content.

Where can we find out more?

Check out these two posts from other FHers in the mobile space:

“Are You Really Ready for a Mobile App?” by Erick McNett, FH Kansas City

“There’s An App for That! Cutting Through the Clutter to Find the Best Branded Mobile Apps” by Radu Iancu, FH Cleveland

James

A tale of two cities

Since my return to Brussels I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the differences between public affairs in Washington D.C. and how it is practiced here in Europe’s capital. My not so groundbreaking conclusion is that while the objective of public affairs may remain the same, the practice of public affairs is shaped by the market’s conditions.

As such, to kick us off in what I intend (at this stage) to be a series of posts reflecting on my time in the U.S. below you’ll find some contrasts between the two markets that I came up. I’ll take a look at my views on the impacts of some of these pairs in the coming weeks.

Elections v Selections

Politics v Policy

Confrontation v Consensus

Fast v Slow

Closed v Open

Money v Insights

Emotion v Facts

Public v Elite

Many v Few

Periphery v Center

No prizes for guessing which side is Brussels and which is Washington.

James

 

FixHousingFirst: Public Affairs Campaign of Year at PR Week awards

News from the US late last week that our Washington D.C. colleagues have picked up a gong at the US PR Week awards for FixHousingFirst campaign.  Congratulations to Pat Cleary, Bill Black, Ben Clark and everyone else involved. We don’t do the work for the awards, but receiving one is pretty special anyway.

In summary, the team helped a bunch of home builders build a broad-based coalition to advocate for federal funding for home-buyers as part of the economic recovery package. The novelty? Much of the coalition building and advocating made use of those digital tools we’ve been banging on about over here for some time. The results? Everywhere you go in the US you can’t move for talk of the federal tax credit for home-buyers.

You can read the  Fix Housing First Case Study here. And below is Pat speaking about the programme late last year at the European Public Affairs Day here in Brussels.

A further article from the UK’s Communicate Magazine talking about the campaign with a wider view of what we do here in Europe, can be found here.

James

Public affairs in a global world – a new internet resource

Image via Wikipedia

Over recent years, our work here at FH Brussels has become increasingly international in nature. The internet has of course contributed to this. In this globally connected age, the issues and policies that our clients care about often transcend both national and regional borders.

Internally, this has meant that our Global Public Affairs Practice has seen annual get togethers in the last three years in our global public affairs hubs of Beijing, Washington and Brussels to discuss how global public affairs plays out at a local level. Happily, we now have a solid global network in public affairs supported by strong local capabilities in key cities across Europe, North America and Asia.

As such, it is great to see an new initiative with a truly global public affairs perspective in the shape of publicaffairsworld.com The website, created by Ben Atfield of London based public affairs recruitment specialists Ellwood and Atfield, brings together news and views from the global public affairs community. Its editorial board has members of the public affairs community from three regions of the world, including Andrew Johnson of Euro RSCG and Tom Spencer of the European Centre for Public Affairs from Brussels.

We’re looking to seeing this platform develop as the public affairs sector (both inhouse and agency) increasingly professionalises across the globe. One small suggestion for the platform’s own development; RSS feeds of the three news columns would be useful for all of us using our own aggregation tools.

James