Slashdot Mirror
Web Design Hampers Mobile Internet?
aws910 writes "Reuters is running an article on how flashy web design is impacting the usability of internet-enabled mobile devices, with quotes from Tim Berners-Lee. Although the article is sparse on details, it is an interesting topic for discussion. Having recently bought an internet-enabled cellphone, I can honestly say that most websites are painful to view on a 240x320 screen over a GPRS connection(EVDO is expensive/US-only). Have we moved away from 56K-modem-oriented design, only to be pulled back in that direction?"
Mobile web is a luxury that will work only for those who run full operating systems on small devices, and it will work via WiFi, not any of the mobile phone (2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G, whatever) networks.
Excuse me? No. It's very useful especially with a device that knows how to interact with sites that aren't specifically designed for it.
As I stated before I would hope that more webdesigners realize the need for customizable content and layout (google news, slashdot, etc) so that people who do use mobile devices can have fast load times and a pleasure using their sites.
It takes 10 minutes to change your site over to be WAP viewable and have Apache rewrite the URLs for you. If only people would take the time...
I have both a Dell Axim x50v (480x640 Windows Mobile 2k3) and my cell phone (LG 325, tiny little screen). Most sites are a major pain to access.
There are a few that are good. My site looks fine (but it is VERY simplistic so that's to be expected). Some sites work to make things look good (Google, OSNews). Slashdot is unreadable on the phone (except in Palm mode which is terrible) and can be read on the PDA in "1 Column Mode" (which works pretty well with most sites). By try to visit any commercial site and you are out of luck. Dell, Maxtor, and most others I've tried (often who like to use one large image split into little images so their site looks like an interactive print ad) are almost completely unviewable. You know why surfing on phones hasn't taken off? Because back when it would have been feasable (simpler pages, years ago) the phones weren't available. Now that they are, sites are unviewable (except for the terrible little portal the phone company provides and one or two other sites specifically designed for phones). Combine that with the increasing prevelance of sites like I explained above and even worse... flash sites... and you just can't do much of anything. I'd call it a chicken and egg problem, but there are millions of eggs out there (the phones), but almost no chickens (sites).
CSS should be able to solve this (if done correctly), but that's not easy, most phones don't support CSS (don't think so, anyway), and most sites don't seem to use CSS (or at least don't have the stylesheets for phones/PDAs, only for normal browsers).
OSNews is actually a model site in this respect, IMHO. Go to their site in IE/FF/Netscape/Opera it looks just fine. Go to it on my phone, it looks different (simpler) but just fine (all the content is there). Go to it on my PDA and I get the desktop version, which (in 1 column view) looks just fine. Haven't checked the site in Lynx, but I wouldn't be suprised if it worked just fine.
Sites need to do a better job. With all the content management systes everyone seems to use (I even wrote my own for my site), you'd think they could come up with a way to make near text only pages with no columns for people on phones/PDAs/screenreaders/etc. Which is another point. I would think that the same things that make sites easier for phones and PDAs would also make them easier to use for the blind using screen readers.
But most places can't be bothered. Dell SOLD ME A PDA, and their site is a pain to access ON THAT SAME PDA. Shows how much most companies care.
PS: And god help you if you had to surf in anything less than 800x600 on a desktop these days. Same problem. Maybe that's the solution. Give everyone's phones 1024x768 and a jewler's loupe to view sites with.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
So your frontpage is nearly 300k? Damn.