Mobile first means desktop second?
A bunch of interesting observations in this post by Oliver Brooks.
The pursuit of a platform agnostic UI doesn’t map neatly to a digital landscape filled with a wide array of different devices, screen sizes, users and, most importantly, input methods. As much as we want to apply order and consistency to the world, it’s important to embrace the fact that it is staggeringly complex and filled with inconsistencies.
Desktop and mobile are still two different worlds. I understand the need of designers to create a uniform/consistent experience that fits both worlds, but leveraging mobile patterns on desktop UIs is not the way to go.
On the other hand, the first UI you design will probably influence the second. So if you start with mobile first, it’s easy to reuse most of the patterns for the desktop.
Crazy idea: enrol two designers, one for the mobile UI and one for the desktop UI. Both work in parallel and don’t know anything about each other. See what comes out.
If you do it, blog about it. I am curious.