So it’s the opposite of constraints. Exciting indeed.

Plus they’ve said they’re going to have the same tools on the phone and on the web – the more I read on designing for mobile the more I’m thinking that mobile shouldn’t be a limited subset of what can be done online, but should offer the same tools and facilities, just designed differently. (The restaurant example of “oh the person on mobile wants our opening hours and menu but the person on the web really wants this 1mb photo of a salad” springs to mind.)

1) Bank Simple – new ways to visualise your transactions (article about it here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/16.....your-money)

2) NAB – giving priority to other banking services (http://www.nab.com.au/wps/wcm/.....sonal/31/1)

(see this discussion on twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/irishstu/status/202004243329196033 & https://twitter.com/#!/irishstu/status/202007799029448706)

Thanks for your comment. I may amend those cards with your definitions; which are far more graceful than mine.

A big part of our workshop was exploring the idea that these definitions have blurry edges (and perhaps not very useful). What is an app, really? Basically we got metaphysical.

You define “Web Applications” as, “An application that uses a (web capable) device’s browser.”
I’d call that a website.

You define “Hybrid applications” as “[a] combination of a web and a native app: it accesses a device’s browser but can also function offline.” Actually, with HTML5, websites can function offline—Lanyrd ( http://m.lanyrd.com/offline/help/ ) is an excellent example of that—so I think that differentiation could quickly become meaningless.

You define “Responsive Design” as “A design that responds to your users’ context whether that means the size of their screen or the sophistication of their browser.” I think Ethan Marcotte’s definition of responsive web design is about enhancing the website within different viewing contexts. I don’t think he was referring to browser sophistication. (“Progressive enhancement” and “graceful degradation” are two different ways to respond to browser sophistication.)

I find these definitions useful:
- website: something that runs in a browser;
- responsive website: a website that adapts to the size of the user’s browser, so that it’s never unreadable or unusable;
- app: a programme that doesn’t run in a browser, but might consume data from a website.

I think the choice between website and native app comes down to this: apps are good for self-contained functionality; websites are good for shared information and functionality—and in an ideal world, all websites would be responsive.

Of course, the answer is that it depends. It always depends!