More and more I find myself wondering about the use cases companies imagine when developing websites and apps. My bank is trying to implement a new UI for their online banking and they are trying to mimic the UI of their mobile app.
The issue I have is that the mobile app is already so dumbed down that it's pointless and I don't use it. When you have limited screen space you need to decide what to show first. For my bank it's the status of a MasterCard credit card I don't own on the first screen of the mobile app. Next is some pointless overview of my accounts. I say pointless, because all context has been removed, in favor of massive amounts of white space.
Now they want to replicate this interface, but for larger screens. Most of the screen is white space and you have to click on everything to get details, details that would fit perfectly well, even on a small laptop screen. Also nothing is obviously click-able, because why would you add visual clues that just taints their beautiful white space.
For the most part I think that companies would love to ignore desktops and large screens. In some sense they may also be afraid of presenting users with details overviews, either is to make everything seem more friendly, or to discourage usage.
The time where an application is perfectly tailored to the machine you're using and everything is near perfect happened, but I think that ship has sailed.
That was the brief moment when the iPhone was the only smartphone to target and was 320x640. Or when the majority computer screens where 1080p at most and the browser would be on more than half the screen estate.
But for your bank for instance, if their UI is optimized for a 6" diagonal window, they'd probably expect you to adjust for that instead of them trying to be perfect on every screen combination that could happen on earth.
That's also how I see many support chat apps' choices of spawning a popup when running on a desktop, to reset any browser size the user was trying to use in the first place (users are still free to do whatever they want with the popup, but it's a good indication of what size it's supposed to be)
Are they trying to mimic the mobile app, or is the web-based online banking app just the mobile app with a slightly different skin? For my bank, it's the latter.
to expand on this for anyone that isn't aware; most front-end teams are rapidly converging on using systems like React-Native / Flutter / Ionic; which allow you to "write once, deploy anywhere" e.g. mobile web, mobile app, desktop web, embedded / PoS, and sometimes tablet and watch.
This is possible by abstracting the layout engine (generally to match a web browser) and having UI control running in transpiled JavaScript.
In more practical terms, this means its easier to have one team managing your website and mobile app, reducing the number of specialist roles and minimising feature disparity. Generally it saves on duplicate work as well and makes timelines easier to manage.
For banks specifically there are a bunch of wins with respect to only having to ensure legal compliance of one application; this applies to banking laws - where certain information must be communicated at certain points, and to public accessibility laws. Most of these frameworks have a lot of tooling around language support and accessibility integrations.
So even if these experiences are inferior, it is very much worth it to the providers.
For the vast majority of people, the mobile bank app is far more useful than a desktop oriented web bank. Many (maybe most by now) don't even own a computer.
I do think you're right. I know a number of people that doesn't own computers anymore and even more who are just doing everything on their phone.
One interesting usage I've seen is especially younger people, who have a debit card which doesn't allow an overdraft. They then keep their account at or around zero and only transfer the amount they need to the card account before every purchase. That usage is supported way better than my attempts at managing saving, paying large bills or keeping track subscriptions and other spending for the past week.
One of their other accounts. I don't know how it works else where, but it's not uncommon to have two, three, four or more. I think my dad at one point used 10 to segment his finances. Accounts normally don't cost anything, or very little.
Most people have at least two. One of their incoming paycheck and one for their debit card. Most have more.
The issue I have is that the mobile app is already so dumbed down that it's pointless and I don't use it. When you have limited screen space you need to decide what to show first. For my bank it's the status of a MasterCard credit card I don't own on the first screen of the mobile app. Next is some pointless overview of my accounts. I say pointless, because all context has been removed, in favor of massive amounts of white space.
Now they want to replicate this interface, but for larger screens. Most of the screen is white space and you have to click on everything to get details, details that would fit perfectly well, even on a small laptop screen. Also nothing is obviously click-able, because why would you add visual clues that just taints their beautiful white space.
For the most part I think that companies would love to ignore desktops and large screens. In some sense they may also be afraid of presenting users with details overviews, either is to make everything seem more friendly, or to discourage usage.