Designing and developing for the mobile web can be tricky to say the least. Not because it is so complicated to do, but because to tools for the medium are virtually non-existent.
There are three types of essential tools needed by a developer in order understand and have confidence and understand in a technology:
- Specifications—basic documentation of the language and sometimes how it is intended to render.
- Techniques—how to actually apply the language to a given problem and how to adapt it to your context.
- Verification—the ability to see how your code is interpreted to ensure you did so correctly.
For example, in web standards we use the W3C specifications for XHTML and CSS, then use a variety of articles of books written on the topic. And we use W3C code validators as our last line of defense. If our code doesn’t validate, then that could be the cause of some random display glitch.
For the mobile web, you can validate against the XHTML-MP specifications of the doctype just as you would a desktop web page. While your code might be 100% valid it doesn’t indicate some of the key content or context issues that face the mobile web experience.
The tools for the mobile web are less than stellar. The Open Mobile Alliance has the specifications for XHTML-MP, but little information is provided about techniques. Especially how they relate to what I call the 3C’s of the Mobile web, three important considerations to any mobile website.
Cost
Access to mobile web isn’t always cheap. Your website is likely to incur the user costs in order to view it. If you don’t develop your mobile website responsibly, the user could get stuck with a big bill in order to view your content. While mobile data costs are coming down precipitously, this is still a big barrier for many users and a cause of concern.
Content
Is your content correctly formatted for the mobile web? This could be as simple as adopting well-formed, tableless web standard code. Or this could mean building a site specific for mobile devices. Issues like navigation, image sizes, page weight and scripts all need to be considered when thinking about your website on mobile devices.
Context
Finally, there is the context of being mobile. The million dollar question should be “what does your website add to the users mobility?” How do you add value to the their physical context? What is the context in which they will use your site? On a bus or train? While these aren’t easy questions to answer, they are easy questions to ask. Asking the question will lead you to structure your strategy, design and development techniques around finding the answer.
Finally…
Recently there have been a lot of each of the three levels of tools announced or published regarding the mobile web. (I’ve provided some of my favorites below) Today at Mobile 2.0 one of the most helpful tools I’ve seen was announced by the .mobi TLD, their Mobile Ready Report.
We had a chance to take it for a spin prior to it being released, and color me impressed.
The Mobile Ready Report serves as an excellent means to know you are on the right track, giving you a snapshot of how well your site performs at least on the first two C’s, Cost and Content. It will estimate the cost to the user in order to view the page you enter, as well as tell you how you could modify your content in order to have faster, more consistent rendering on mobile devices.
The W3C launched their mobile web Best Practices Checker a while back, but it doesn’t do much to address Cost and Context, not to mention being a pretty tough interface to use. While the Mobile Ready Report doesn’t address Context either, it is almost impossible to validate without doing user testing or contextual inquires. But any tool that gives me 2 out of 3 nailed with a fair amount of detail to support it, definitely helps.
It is important to note that the Mobile Ready Report complies to W3C Best Practices recommendations, but also adds many additional recommendations.
Even though the tool still needs a little work, we’ve found that after running a site through the Mobile Ready Report, we were able to spend anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour to get a mobile site into the green, making it mobile ready.
While both the Mobile Ready Report and the Best Practices Checker help with verification, you still need specifications and techniques in order to put all the pieces together.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Specifications
Techniques
- Global Authoring Practices
- W3C Mobile web Initiative Best Practices
- .mobi Mobile Developers Guide
- XHTML Mobile Profile Tutorial
- WAP CSS/WCSS Tutorial
- Little Springs Design
- Mobile web Design Series
- Designing for Mobile workshop
- mobiledesign.org community mailing list
Why does the mobile web have to “add to user’s mobility?”
The other night I was waiting for my friends who were meeting me at the pub. I was just standing out front surfing the Web on my mobile phone. It didn’t enhance my mobility. I was just sitting there and wanted to consume content while I wait.
Justin,
A mobile website certainly doesn’t have to “add to the users mobility” but when you take their context into consideration it definitely creates a far better user experience.
The important thing is to ask the question and seriously deliberate on the answers.
With the prohibitive costs of mobile web where they are now, I can understand that users have to be more choosy about the content that they access. They will probably want sites that enhance their mobility. Are there stats to backup what users access on the web?
Do you think that over the next few years as mobile data rates become cheaper and cheaper the amount of general web surfing will increase? It won’t just be sites that relate to the context that the user is in, like find the nearest pub.
Shouldn’t we be taking action to preparing the sites we have know to be reasonably accessed from a mobile phone? Not all of us have Moveable Type. It seems unreasonable to make a mobile alternative web site for every site.
How would you consider context or enhancing a users mobility when the only web access they have is over their mobile? Like how it is in some African countries: <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4795255.stm” rel=”nofollow”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4795255.stm</a>
Justin,
You ask some excellent questions!
Are there stats to backup what users access on the web?
Right now, email, weather and news is the top informational content people are seeking. There was an interesting survey last year on “what people want on their 3G phones”:http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/May2005/1457.htm. I think we begin to see people wanting to use mobile devices to interact with information in the real world.
While this list is heavy on transactions, I believe that when you add technologies like location-based services (or LBS) to the equation, suddenly information from the web can be pulled to you and applied to your physical location. LBS is here now. We are very close to a contextual Internet, where the web is a layer of information to the physical world we access from mobile devices.
Do you think that over the next few years as mobile data rates become cheaper and cheaper the amount of general web surfing will increase?
Yes. Absolutely. The cost of data is falling very quickly. We can look to other markets to see the mobile service provider trend of having a high cost of data at first, but quickly reduce prices as market demand increases. For example, my data plan is half what it was two years ago. I also think that is the mobile service providers don’t drop prices quickly, then consumers will lean toward adopting connectivity services perceived to be free like Wi-Fi or WiMAX. The thirst for information exists in the consumer, but costs of access are a huge factor preventing adoption.
It won’t just be sites that relate to the context that the user is in, like find the nearest pub.
Correct. It is no coincidence that both Yahoo! and Google have invested heavily into local and already have mobile services to access this information.
Shouldn’t we be taking action to preparing the sites we have know to be reasonably accessed from a mobile phone? Not all of us have Moveable Type. It seems unreasonable to make a mobile alternative web site for every site.
Yes! Yes! Yes! The first step is adopt “Web Standards”:http://www.webstandards.org/. This makes things incredibly easier. In many cases you can add one line of code to your markup and have a mobile friendly site in minutes. Creating a site specific to mobile might be right for some sites, it might not be right for others. That being said, a mobile specific site, hands down creates the best mobile experience for the user.
Just about every CMS has some sort of method to publish a mobile specific site. If you can publish an RSS feed, you can create mobile specific site in about two hours. The markup is so simple that it really doesn’t a lot of effort to produce a far better experience.
How would you consider context or enhancing a users mobility when the only web access they have is over their mobile? Like how it is in some African countries.
Excellent question. In these developing countries where mobile technology is their only conduit to the Internet, the user is less interested in knowing the services around them like folks North of the equator and just want the information that wasn’t available to them before. For developed countries context and mobility issues are key to driving usefulness and therefore adoption as we have options. Those in undeveloped countries don’t need this carrot to increase adoption. The information is reward enough, mobile being the only option.
Thanks Justin for the fantastic follow-up questions!
<strong>The first step is adopt Web Standards. This makes things incredibly easier. In many cases you can add one line of code to your markup and have a mobile friendly site in minutes.</strong>
Maybe this is fodder for another blog post but what do you think of the W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices (now a Proposed Rec.) as baseline advice for helping existing Web sites to be more mobile friendly?
Definitely another post.
Luca Passani, developer at OpenWave (top mobile web browser maker), co-creator of WURFL and WALL, provides “very good insight”:http://www.passani.it/gap/intro.htm about the W3C Mobile Initiative Best Practices.
Mobile web is a reality. Thanks for good job.
Great job, interesting interview. Thank you.