This post is part of a series on mobile user interface design patterns, excerpted from Designing the Mobile User Experience, John Wiley & Sons, 2007. The first set of patterns will address advertising on the mobile.
Mobile banner ads have come, and gone, come again, left again, and now come again. At some point they will stay in the mobile space, but only if done well.
Design
The Mobile Marketing Association has industry standard best practices for banner ads. Be sure to follow those requirements carefully, and expect the practices to evolve over time. Use the "less is more" philosophy to avoid banner blindness in which the user's eye simply does not register banner-appearing content.In addition to following the MMA guidelines, a banner ad system should, where possible,
- Make the ad content highly contextual, based both on content and other information discernible about the user.
- Ensure that the advertising site is as well designed as the native application.
- Set default focus below the banner ad, so the user does not have to scroll past it.
- Provide a return pointer on the advertising site, so the user can easily return to your application. Note that frames are not readily available in the mobile environment.