Visitors Still Using a BlackBerry

The phones still in the boardroom

Two weeks ago BlackBerry announced that it will stop designing its own phones and leave the hardware to partners. Much of the coverage read like an obituary.

In Canadian offices, though, BlackBerry devices are still common: in law firms, banks, insurers and large employers that issued them for years. The people carrying them read websites on them between meetings.

Phones already in pockets keep working, and companies replace them on their own schedules, not on the day of an announcement.

For some businesses, those visitors are among the most valuable they have.

Which BlackBerry they carry

• Touchscreen BlackBerry 10 models such as the Z10, with a capable browser.
• Square-screen BlackBerry 10 models such as the Passport, Classic and Q10.
• Older keyboard models on BlackBerry 7 and earlier, with dated browsers.
• Android-based models, which behave like any other Android phone.

The second needs the most design attention. A layout planned for tall phones meets a screen as wide as it is high, and anything fixed at the top or bottom takes a far larger share of it.

How many you have

Analytics shows them in a few places. The operating system report lists BlackBerry, and the mobile devices report names the models it can identify.

The screen resolution report gives the square screens away: the width and the height are the same.

The Android-based models appear under Android instead, which is fine, because that is how they behave.

Look beyond the count. Note when they visit, which pages they read and whether they complete the goals other phone visitors complete. Weekday office hours and a fees page tell you a good deal about who they are.

Who those visitors are

For a cafe or a hair salon, a handful of BlackBerry visits is a curiosity. For a business that sells to offices, they can be the people who decide.

Lawyers, accountants, office managers and purchasing staff check a supplier's site on whatever is in their pocket. The person approving your quote may be reading it on a Passport.

They read during office hours, between other tasks, so a page that makes them wait or hunt for a phone number loses them to the next meeting.

That is why the share alone is a poor guide. A few visits a month from the right people can matter more than many from people who will never buy.

What tends to break

On BlackBerry 10, most sites work. The trouble is usually layout: on a square screen, a tall header, a fixed call bar and a pop-up together can leave a sliver for the content.

On older models, more breaks. Menus that depend on scripts may not open, sliders stall, and forms with custom widgets such as date pickers can stop a visitor reaching the submit button.

Very old phone browsers may also fail to connect to a server set to accept only the newest encryption, which is worth knowing before anyone tightens those settings.

Keyboard and trackpad navigation adds one more problem: links and buttons packed tightly together are hard to select one at a time.

A worked example

A workplace mediator who works alone gets most referrals from employment lawyers and human resources managers at large employers.

Analytics showed a steady trickle of BlackBerry visits on weekdays, mostly to the services and fees pages, and almost none reaching the confirmation page that follows a sent form.

Testing on borrowed devices showed why. On an older Bold, the menu button did nothing, so visitors were stuck on whatever page they landed on. On a Passport, a fixed header with a large logo covered nearly half the screen.

The contact form also asked for preferred session dates through a pop-up calendar that would not close on the older model.

The fixes were modest: a plain list of links in the footer that works without scripts, and a header that no longer stays fixed on short screens.

The phone number and email address now sit as text near the top of each page, and preferred dates go in a plain box.

Testing without buying a phone

Ask around before buying anything. Clients, staff and the office drawer of retired phones will usually turn up a BlackBerry 10 model and an older one.

Test what a visitor needs: the home page, the menu, a tap on the phone number, the fees or prices, and a form submitted all the way to its confirmation.

Write down what fails and on which model. That list is the brief for whoever fixes it.

Make it work, not identical

The aim is a site that works on an older browser, not one that looks the same as it does on a new iPhone.

That means content in plain HTML that does not wait for scripts, links that still work when scripts fail, phone numbers and email addresses as text, and forms that submit without special widgets.

Do not build a separate version for BlackBerry, and do not greet older browsers with a message telling visitors to upgrade. The person reading probably has no say in the phone they were issued.

How much attention they deserve

Match the effort to the value. If BlackBerry visitors are a visible slice of your traffic and they are the people who buy, test every significant change on one.

If they are a handful on a consumer site, check the basics once or twice a year and leave it there.

Either way, watch the trend. The numbers will fall as offices replace their phones over the next few years.

The counter-case

Many businesses will find almost no BlackBerry visits at all, and should spend nothing on this beyond a glance at the report.

Even for businesses selling to offices, the oldest models are a shrinking group, and holding back improvements for their sake would be a mistake.

Make sure the basics work, especially the contact details and the form, and leave the rest.

Checking the basics

1. Find BlackBerry in the operating system report.
2. Check the models and screen resolutions they use.
3. Compare their goal completions with other phones.
4. Borrow two devices, one old and one new.
5. Test the menu, phone link and form.
6. Make the basics work without scripts.
7. Recheck twice a year as the numbers fall.

Step three tells you if anything is wrong in the first place. If BlackBerry visitors complete goals about as often as other phone visitors, the site is working for them and the rest can wait.

Finding which devices deserve testing first is covered in reading the devices report before a redesign.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.