GigaOM: Why Kayak Prefers Mobile

Mobile first is winning. That’s what Kayak (one of my favorite websites and iOS applications) is doing, moving the design of their applications to the web:

Normally a web-based company that decides to make an app wants to translate the look and feel of its site to that app. But Kayak has been there, done that. And from the design team to the executive team, those within Kayak say it now makes more sense to do the opposite. "I  got to the point where I actually liked iPhone app better than our website, I thought it was aesthetically more beautiful," Kayak co-founder and CTO Paul English told me in an interview last week.

At its design lab up on Concord, Mass. Kayak does eye-tracking studies to see what users are or are not using. "Our design goal – if something is on the screen and people aren't clicking on, we remove it," said English. The overall goal in making the site look more like a mobile app is to shed unnecessary details and simplify.