Web/Mobile App Critique

    An app that I use on a daily basis in both Web form on the PC and also on my mobile device is the IGN app / IGN.com website. IGN is mostly a gaming news platform but also reviews other things such as movies and TV, computer hardware, gaming and movie memorabilia among other things however they began as a gaming review site and that is their main attraction if you will still to this day.

Design and Usability

    The overall design is pretty good on both platforms however I do feel that it is much more pleasing to the eyes on the mobile version over the Web version that you would see on IGN.com either on your phone web browser or the PC. The usability again is fine for both versions however I do feel again that the web version has an easier interface to not only navigate to find what you are looking for but just the general layout in general. The two screenshots attached show the direct comparison to both the web and mobile app and it is pretty clear to see that the Web version really just appears to be a cluttered mess but in comparison the mobile app version fills the screen perfectly and is very easy not only to navigate but find exactly what you are looking for very quickly.

Recommendations for Improvement

    I think my biggest complaint here would be I feel that we are experiencing a reverse in website functionality and mobile in the sense that even in just a short amount of time probably like 5 years or even less it has gone from Website / Web app being the focus to Mobile apps getting all the attention and polish leaving the Desktop / web versions of the same application / website to suffer. I remember when so called smart mobile devices were first becoming a thing and widely adopted and it was just the opposite and viewing material on a small device was very difficult and often just not practical as everything was really catered to larger screens. But now instead of it being that just the mobile market has become level with the large screen / PC market for news and applications we have everything being developed with ONLY the mobile market in mind and leaving the large screen formats to suffer. When I go to IGN on my PC there is a ton of wasted space on both the left and righthand side of the web browser however the same material if perfectly formatted for mobile, I would like to see this addressed and the content presented properly on PC as well. Also the PC / Web version is over bloated with garbage from your browsing history and displayed in a horrible fashion on the Web version and just too distracting and honestly just really in annoying places and makes the website feel like a fake clone of the real material, like I shouldn't be here and I am about to be flooded with viruses. But the mobile version is not as bad, in fact most of the ads which drive their revenue are tied to video content and not shoved down my throat like in the web version. 

    The one thing that really stands out about the web version that drives me crazy and should be a simple but huge fix would be being able to filter out what system / console you are wanting to see reviews for. On the PC / Web version it is pretty easy to filter out which system you want to see reviews on but I can't seem to do it in the mobile version.