Mobile Web Junkie

Thanks to Jakob Neilson, the world is suddenly waking up to the idea that to make the web useable on mobiles you have to make the web for mobiles.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html

We’ve been saying this for years and I wonder what took Jakob so long to discover the mobile web anyway? Maybe he was on a really long phone contract and only just got an upgrade. Or maybe his handset was so cluttered he only just found the browser.

Either way, he’s on board now and whether you subscribe to his somewhat draconian dismissal of everything pretty over everything useable you will certainly recognise the importance of such an influential character entering the affray.

Now, I’m a little dubious about the research itself, but mainly that’s because I already knew that getting a test subject to access a full website on a mobile browser is UI suicide. I’m not disregarding the findings at all, because I agree with the conclusions. I just feel that the approach could have been to  look at sites already designed with mobile in mind might have helped us advance the cause rather than assist the stragglers.

To summarize the problems in his research findings: ‘Websites don’t work on mobile because they are designed for a big screen and mouse controlled GUI.’

The solution, of course, is to actually make dynamic and optimizing services for mobile.

As a developer or designer, once you begin on this path, usability common sense kicks in, mainly because you have to work and test on mobile devices during development.

If your buttons are too small, you’ll know when you first try to click on them, if you put too much on a page you’ll spend most of your time scrolling. If your pages contain too much data you’ll spend forever waiting for them to load, and so on.

So now you’ve learnt from the UI master himself, the real trick is to use technology like WAPL to ensure that your wonderfully designed and interactive service works well and looks perfect on every mobile device.

Without WAPL, developing for ALL devices is incredibly difficult if you take a ground up approach. Identifying devices and adapting content will take up valuable time and resources that would be well spend elsewhere.

You can concentrate on the UI, the design (as pretty things are important too, Jakob – they help us bond with the interface) and most importantly the application.

A great idea, WAPL and the UI considerations of such an expert will set you firmly on your way to creating a marvellous mobile web experience.

Related posts:

1. Code, Don’t Transcode for Mobile Web
2. Intro to Architect Mobile Web Development
3. Importance of Single Domains for Web and Mobile
4. IE6 Must Die, Mobile Browsers Must Live
5. Upwardly Mobile – Why Your Web Strategy Needs to Think Portable