Understanding Multi-Device User Behavior
I Suspect let’s picture this: you’re on the train home, scrolling through tiktok, and see a link to some spicy new trainers. But you can’t buy them now - you’re two stops away and it’d be weird for the aunty sitting next to you. You save the link, head home, and then use your laptop to make the purchase later on. Sort of.
In 2024, this is hardly ever fairly common behaviour. But it wasn’t always like this, I think. Not even five years ago, we were not as device-agnostic as we are apparently today.
If we found something on one device, the process of finding it on another was fairly laborious. Sort of. Today, buying on one device based on what you’ve seen on another is common. And that’s just scratching the surface with online shopping.
For online content - whether it’s streaming media or learning resources - users expect a seamless experience across devices more than ever before. This means that brands need to consider how content appears on all devices when they design their websites and applications. Cross-platform and cross-device behaviour is both subconscious and intentional, so there must be parity between experiences no matter where users access content from. And given how device-agnostic people are often today, ignoring any particular device can cost brands a fair amount of business - especially if they ignore mobile.
Designing for Consistency Across Platforms
We've all been there. You start shopping for something you don't actually need - say, a new air fryer or a wallet - on your phone. Looks Like get bored and close the browser.
Next thing you know, you're being reminded of what could have been on another device, and decide to check it out again. But the website looks so different that you're not sure if it's the same place - so now you find yourself searching for it all over again. A big part of creating a consistent design across platforms comes down to ensuring that people can use your product seamlessly no matter what device they're on.
Whether it's through branding and visuals or by using similar elements, fonts, and layouts across platforms, there are ways to make sure people aren't wondering whether they're still shopping at the same store they were just looking at. It also means using things like sticky headers or similar navigation bars to make it easier for people to remember where things are when they're switching from one device to another. Consistency is often overlooked when creating products because there's such a strong focus on making things visually appealing that it ends up trumping practicality or even usability sometimes.
The goal isn't to create carbon copies of a site across platforms but rather to create familiar experiences that make sense even if things look different based on what sort of device people are accessing them from. There's something reassuring about clicking into an app or web browser and seeing familiar shapes and colours that communicate brand values regardless of what platform you're looking at them from. This is great because we already have limited patience online as it is - so if we're able to find what we want easily without having to second-guess whether we're where we wanted to be or not, that's always a win in my book.
Leveraging Responsive Design Techniques
You ever feel that frustration when you’re on your phone, and a website looks like it’s been designed for a desktop computer from the nineties. And you have to awkwardly zoom in and scroll sideways just to read the contact details. Happens to me more often than I’d like.
More or less. I tend to give up eventually and try a different site. That’s why responsive web design has changed the game. It was introduced in 2010, and at first, it felt revolutionary.
But now, it’s just par for the course. If your website isn’t responsive across devices, you risk losing your audience. And if your competitors have a similar offering but are rather easier to access, well, your users will flock there.
More than half of the world accesses content through mobile devices today - that’s a lot of potential customers lost if you don’t keep up with current trends. But here’s the thing: responsive web design isn’t only about resizing images or changing font sizes. It involves redesigning navigation menus, layouts, button placements, and even call-to-action copy so that everything fits within a small screen without overcrowding it.
But it goes both ways because while some elements need to shrink, others need to expand as well. For instance, if you use icons for specific actions on your website, they might be easy enough to spot on desktops but not so much on phones or tablets. Increasing their size and ensuring they’re easy to tap on mobile devices is important too.
The best websites are those that look good across devices - not just functionally but aesthetically too because there’s no substitute for an excellent user experience.
Implementing Cross-Device User Testing
I Assume you’re in a cafe, scrolling through your favourite shopping app. You add that cool new jacket to your cart and get back to sipping your coffee. In the evening, you log on to your desktop, hoping to buy it, but the jacket’s gone.
The checkout button’s missing too. Quite the buzzkill.
This is why cross-device user testing matters so much today. It’s about more than ‘making sure things work’. It’s about ensuring that every person who finds themselves in a similar situation can enjoy a smooth experience across devices. Testing ensures nothing is lost between browsers.
And if something is, it’s all handled way before anyone notices. A cross-device experience in Australia is more than just desktop or mobile now — and it’s growing into even more devices every day thanks to IoT and smart home tech. But this also means designing for older hardware and software, which can be expensive in time and resources.
It’s important to remember that these barriers can be mitigated through strong communication with users through things like ‘unsupported browser’ notifications or context-aware messages. Teams often test with cloud-based platforms like Browserstack or Sauce Labs now because they’re easily accessible and give space for collaborative QA. But there are still instances where physical hardware can make a difference in reliability, accuracy and network speeds for both older devices as well as the newer ones.
I think investing in actual devices in the long-run might be one of those things that teams can put off until they’ve got some breathing room but will make up for lost time fairly quickly because of the thoroughness they offer. There are thousands of ways experiences can go wrong even after being designed responsibly. That goes for cross-device experiences too. The way I see it, testing is just one more step before launch that puts you within shouting distance of the best possible outcome — happy, satisfied users who actually find pleasure in interacting with you on any device they use.
Personalization Strategies for Diverse Devices
Personalisation is all about giving each user their own uniquely tailored experience. Just imagine - you’re on your phone shopping for an outfit, and the site presents clothing that matches your style preferences, weather in your area, and gives you product recommendations based on previous purchases. Feels rather special right. Almost like the store really knows you.
That’s one way personalisation can work. Personalisation strategies take into account inputs from device usage and apply them to create unique experiences for each user when interacting with the website or application.
This could mean changing the design layout based on the device used or using AI to prioritise content based on a user’s interests. I find it interesting how personalisation attempts to learn a lot about users in hopes of improving their digital experiences. It has loads of benefits - reduced time searching for content, improved accessibility, personalised user journeys through websites or apps, and more meaningful product recommendations.
But it could all mean nothing if you don’t know who your users are to begin with. For personalisation to be executed well, a brand needs a thorough understanding of its user base (or ideal customers if it’s just starting out). This is usually achieved by observing different touchpoints customers have with a brand and also collecting relevant data that informs brands about each customer’s interests (even though many people are hesitant about data collection). With this information available (and consent received), brands can then move ahead with personalising their web experiences.
Future Trends in Multi-Device UX Design
It’s all a bit Black Mirror, isn’t it. When I look back just five years ago, the thought of having devices that communicate with each other the way they do now would’ve made me feel like I was in a dystopian reality. Yet today, it’s everywhere.
People expect everything to work seamlessly wherever they are - whether at the gym, their kitchen, or bathroom. Yeah, that’s how deep it runs. This never-ending need for connectedness has given rise to some interesting trends for cross-device experiences: body devices being more popular due to health concerns arising from increasingly sedentary lifestyles and remote work, the use of artificial intelligence and biometric identification for more personalised touchpoints (sweaty hands at the gym.
You’ll want to be touching things less, trust me), and better accessibility for those with physical disabilities. And as someone who recently started sporting an Apple Watch (I know), my screen time went down dramatically with all the notifications making their way straight to my wrist instead of my phone screen. All the reminders for periodic movement also worked wonders at keeping neck pain at bay from hunching over my laptop too long.
Now that we’re all on our devices more often than we ever were before, this monitoring feature is likely going to be used by more and more people. Let’s face it: if you’re not considering all possible touchpoints (even those that might seem highly unlikely), you’re going to miss out on engaging your users where they are.