Though Apple's 9.7 inch iPad commands over 60% of all tablet sales worldwide, tablets of all sizes are emerging around globe. But as tablets get smaller people's use of the Web drops. Why?
- 10 inch tablets (like Samsung's Galaxy Tab) average 125 page views in the browser per tablet. (source)
- 9 inch tablets (like Apple's iPad) average 116 page views in the browser per tablet. (source)
- 7 inch tablets (like Amazon's Kindle Fire) average 90 page views in the browser per tablet. (source)
- 5 inch tablets (like Samsung's Galaxy Note) average 79 page views in the browser per tablet. (source)
What could be behind this precipitous drop in page views? Usability testing of Amazon's 7 inch Kindle Fire seems to reveal some answers.
- The most striking observation from testing the Fire is that everything is much too small on the screen, leading to frequent tap errors and accidental activation. (source)
- Accessing full (desktop) sites on the Fire was a prescription for failure in our testing. Users did much better when using mobile sites. (source)
- For 7-inch tablets to succeed, service and content providers must design specifically for these devices. Repurposed designs from print, mobile phones, 10-inch tablets, or desktop PCs will fail, because they offer a terrible user experience. (source)
As a wider range tablet and mobile screen sizes continues to emerge, multi-device Web design is clearly becoming a lot more important.