When preparing for this week’s articles and activities, a term kept coming to mind, then it started popping up in various articles and comments. The term is simple, JIT (just in time), and it refers to a context of information and the media channels supporting it. But when we drive into mobile, JIT takes on another, more personal implication – I’m using this device for this channel because at the moment of need, its just in time to reply.

When was the last time that you went to your mobile for something you needed right now? Was it directions? A movie time? A contact you needed to message? How did it make you feel when you got that desired information? Were you relieved? Or, did you decide that you’d not go that route anymore – hoping that you never were stuck in that same place with that “only known to you” avenue of finding it?

In designing for a mobile context, this concept of JIT has to be taken probably a bit more seriously than everything else. We can see that there’s at least one signifiant set of mobile consumers who can be strictly judged by this JIT approach (see Pew Internet report).

So, when you are designing your application or service – does it matter to a JIT context? Yes, some content doesn’t. Let’s strike that off the board now. Now, to the content that does matter – can it be accessed just as its needed? Does someone have to remember a login code to get there? Do they have to compromise privacy in identity, location, or relationships to get whatever is needed just at that time? Is the value of that extra step worth what’s at the end of the rainbow?

At least from my perspective, many of the apps – and I can argue even down to the mobile platforms themselves – do very little these days to repsect that some information needs to be gleaned as easily as God makes Himself available to us – think it, nav to it, got it. When its not, what breaks in the experience? There are less than 20 app slots on that homescreen – is what you offering as necessary to someone’s life also valuable enough to be put on that screen that’s accessible at the immediate moment of need? If not, did you have the right focus/perspective in building that channel?

Just in time… we get dingged about that towards MMM all the time (hence the design approach taken with the alternate mobile site). If its not available when its needed, then its value diminishes faster than the time it takes to finally get there – if you do get there. Tech is relevant when its personal – but personal matters in the context of being right on time.