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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?"
I just wrote a text only portal to the information I need using Nokia's Python SDK for Symbian 60.
:)
It screen scrapes the sites I'm interested in and just returns the stuff I *want* to know : local cinema showings, a few RSS feeds, my current bank balance - that sort of stuff
More work than most people will do but makes me happy
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I also just bought an internet-friendly cell phone (Treo 650), and I'm figuring out which sites want me to visit them while I'm on the run (Google and Southwest airlines, to name two off the top of my head) and those that don't (weather.com).
Either produce a mobile-friendly version of your site - which shouln't be the end of the world, considering that most major sites these days are run by content management systems, or let the viewers go to your competitors. Automatic browser detection would be nice, but I can handle typing "mobile" or whatever instead of "www".
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So until businesses are punished for their lack of interoperability with mobile devices, this will always be the case.
And it's unlike they'll ever be punished because device manufacturers have the onus to interoperate with bad sites, not vice versa.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
IMO, broswing website using some silly little contraption is silly. Just view the sites on a regualr computer when it's more convenient. Or, every web designer should use CSS and have a handheld-friendly CSS option.
Or webdesigners can take the time to make websites that have slimmed down versions (text only Google News, Slashdot's lite (or completely customizable version, various sites that offer WAP detection).
I have a little utility that I wrote for geocachers to convert words to numbers via the "dollar word method". A guy I know complained that it wouldn't render on his WAP phone. I spent the 10 minutes using Google to figure out how to write it to work w/WAP and how to get Apache to detect WAP and rewrite the URLs.
Is it really that hard to do? Do we really need Flash and 100k page loads for a simple website?
No, we don't and it's not silly when you are sitting on the bus or train or in the mall waiting for your SO to shop.
Be serious.
It seems plausible to think that the market forces will overpower (or otherwise direct) those of technology in this instance.
For example, do you think that Amazon will move to a simpler website design to accomodate relatively few mobile users? Or would they go to the trouble to create an alternate 'mobile-only' website?
The answer?
Yes, if the market demands for such a headache merit doing so.
Otherwise, I think the technology of mobile Internet will have to conform to the current market situation of flashy website designs.
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
I can't believe a dozen comments have been posted all to the effect of "don't look at the net w/ handheld - flashy is good",
... maybe ... but how about just dishing up information?
Well, flashy sucks on handhelds or on a real computer. I almost feel like I'm back on a modem when I visit some sites which feel the need to pull their flashy ads of some distant server and won't display squat till that happens. Or sites that are FLASH only - sure it's neat once
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
If you stick to the standards you can easily make good looking sites that can scale any screen and browser.
Gimme some of that sweet, sweet crack.
The do what the cavemen did while they were waiting for their flights - sit down and shut up.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to have a cellphone shoved into your ear, or a web browser in your face 24/7.
<horse type="hobby">
The WWW is also useless on a real PC if you actually try to use the resolutions the PC is capable of. For instance my current PC/monitor combination can handle 2048x1536 resolution.
I tried that just the other day, and >90% of sites were just unusable, even if you increase the font size.
Then again, >90% is way better than the OS (MacOSX) and my actual applications which was 100% unusable...
Apple is just sitting on this revolutionary resolution independent windowing system, and they just won't let me use it as intended.
For gods sake, I just want 300 dpi monitor resolution, is that too much to as for? Especially from the company that popularized WYSIWYG?
</horse>I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
the topic is
sparse on det-
ails because
it needs to
fit into a mo-
bile phone
screen.
sulli
RTFJ.
Actually, a CSS redesign of Slashdot has been offered, although there would be lots of heavy lifting to get it into slashcode. This part 2 of an article on /. redesign shows how /. renders on a mobile device currently (well, at least when the article was written), and how a CSS version would gracefully degrade in a portable browser.
(Part 1)
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
from anybrowser.org:
the same principle applies to "page[s] that [are] designed for 1600x1200 resolutions." the idea is to keep content separate from presentation - that's what CSS and XHTML and so on are supposed to enable - but that goal is impossible with crap like flash etc.
as soon as anyone puts a label on a website that says, "this site is designed for _______," it means they're locking some people (blind people, users of text browsers, PDA and cel-phone users, etc.) out of your site, and that's bad business, plus it demonstrates their ignorance of web technology.
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
With all of the RTFM and RTFA retorts around here, I think the best solution to a boring wait is to RTF whatever. Better still, read a book.
Are we getting so wired that we can't just sit still with a bound book and read for half an hour?
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
Frankly speaking dude, a person who calls themselves a "web developer" and is making 283K homepages is part of the problem. That's bigger than CNN's.
Badmouthing people for your inability to control your page bloat, just shows that your maturity as a developer is lacking in more areas than just efficiency.
" The problem with alternate versions is cost."
Cost is a double edged sword when you are looking at future business models. In the past 6 months, my company has been visited by big-wigs from every major wireless provider in the US desperatly seeking the killer app that will increase wireless airtime usage.
Yet, even today, I still can't whip out my mobile and easily check weather, news, or plan a trip (to include reserving tickets). All of things could be done 3 years ago in Japan. And this time it wasn't due to any magical Japanese techno glory. It was simply just that the mobile providers partnered with content providers to make the phones tools that could be used for every aspect of life.
As long as we are stuck with this crappy SMS messaging (seriously, how hard is it to have full email to a phone...it's just data), and no content to make the web browser in my phone anything more than an amusement that get's old in 5 minutes, product cycles are going to stay rediculously slow and we will remain two to three years behind Japan and Europe.
Simply put, for the younger crowd, the cell phone has got to become a status symbol due to cool features (we're starting to get there), and for the older crowd, it has got to be a tool that goes beyond just being able to make a phone call away from home. Once the carriers satisfy both of these markets, we will start to see a consumer drive to have the latest features which will in turn push competition in handset design.
The phone providers don't need a new killer app, they just need some basic organized content worth looking at.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky