Journal.
Reflections On The Ubiquity Of Poor Design in Hong Kong
Hong Kong can be a cold hard place for the curious designer.
Every street corner reveals ill-conceived design choices, aesthetic horrors, and evidence of typographic neglect. It can be hard to keep your bearings. To grasp tightly one’s moral compass and keep fighting the good fight.
Native App vs. Web App; Why Hong Kong Mostly Gets It Wrong.
In Hong Kong, there are many examples where a popular website or business decides to release an app. In this sense, ‘app’ is short-hand for a native application; a downloadable thing that creates an icon on your homescreen, be it on an Apple mobile device (iPhone, iPad, and iTouch), or on an Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, or Windows device.
But there is another type of ‘app’. It’s called a web application, or web-app for short. In this context it usually refers to a website that, one way or another, works well on mobile devices. And it’s usually the better option.
Forgive me Hong Kong, but we are generally a little backward when it comes to this sort of thing. Let me reveal a little secret: most websites do not need a native app. Let me explain.