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Should Businesses Have Mobile Friendly Websites?
cellPhoneSafe: "A client of ours has asked us to develop a mobile friendly version of their website. Their CEO has a Pocket PC and his browsing experience of his site is not great. However, aside from keeping him happy, is there a business case for a mobile friendly version of his site? Is there actually any volume of web surfers using a Pocket PC, Palm, or other web-capable pocket devices? It's one thing to convince a client of the benefit of supporting Mozilla (else they'll loose 10% of potential customers), but how do the figures stack up for mobile users? To be honest, I'd be surprised if mobile users accounted for more than 1 in a 1000 visitors to a site, so I'd be interested in your experiences. Have you developed a website for mobile users? Were you overwhelmed with new customers? Did these mobile users expect a different service offering to traditional PC users?"
I can only speak from my personal experiences with mobile internet, and they've been mostly disappointing, but I think the shortcoming is more in the form factor and less in the reluctance or resistance of the internet developers to provide mobile compatible web sites.
I first surfed "mobile" with a cell phone, "duette" (can't remember the manufacturer, doesn't matter). It had a small something-like six or seven line black and white character based screen. The access to the internet was provided by the phone service, and apparently they pretty much mapped the web sited you would access, there was no notion of "address bar" (that I remember). The speed was slow, the sites were rarely updated, and the presentation was terrible.
Fast forward to a month ago when I got the latest Palm with hi-res screen and wi-fi built in. I mostly got it for the high quality screen (which has not disappointed) but looked forward to also having near hi-res internet experience. This device has essentially half-VGA resolution and hence gives "normal" surfing access to the internet.
I've not encountered too many sites that bother to accommodate mobile devices, and after using the Palm TX for a while I see why. The Palm is probably one of the better devices for screen quality and even then (even when a site "does mobile"), the experience is unsatisfactory. (Google actually does a mobile presentation, but I actually would prefer it didn't -- the real estate and presentation is SO clamped down, I'd prefer panning the screen.)
In my opinion, I don't think there is much to be done about creating a satisfactory, let alone a "great" experience for mobile devices. Their form factor is just too small -- there are far too many people who, even with high resolution, cannot use these to surf the net comfortably.
If I were making decisions about a web site and whether to accommodate mobile devices my first instinct would be to ignore that niche. I wonder if there are any compelling counters to this experience?
More mobile users would visit if it were actually somewhat easy to visit. But companies won't make an attempt at a mobile site until there's enough volume. This is why technology gets adapted so damn slowly.
I use a mobile device quite frequently to access the internet when travelling and aside from the applications such as IRC and other such utilities, I don't usually use the web browsing facility for anything *too* serious; I'll catch up on the latest news, look up the phone number for the nearest Pizza Hut and activities like that.
If there's a website I want to purchase something from, or even find information out about a particular business, I'll stick the URL in my to-do list and check it out when I'm at a PC or laptop, allowing me to look into it in more depth.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
...advertisers figure out how to make pay-per-click text banner ads.
The web has become so commercialized that it's not even the web anymore. It's just an advertisement forum.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
In general, no, but who goes to your site? If it's young Japanese girls, then you better have one that will work on their phones. Are you processing orders from a sales force on their PDA's? Would be nice to get those orders in... I mean one look at your server logs should tell you how many people trying to use a mobile browser...
I recently got a Treo 650, and while Blazer can render most pages well, I mostly stick with sites that I know work well. Wikipedia (with the right skin), and Google are great. Other sites like IMDB work well, but are slow due to extra stuff that doesn't render well. If they had a mobile IMDB system, I'd use it all the time. (I'm horrible with actor names, and have to know where I recognize someone from)
/., I just use the normal pages in "light" mode, which works out quite well. I don't get enough of the comments, which is why I love /.
Actually for
If anyone knows any other good mobile pages, I'd love to hear them.
How does the browser experience differ for those with different devices.
It's commonly agreed that a mobile friendly website takes additional resources to create.
Given the fact that most websites have problem asking money from traditional site visitors, I find it hard to believe any additional spending can be justified by most websites.
Having said that, some niche websites, which either [1] are built primarily for mobile users (that is, mobile friendly website is in the initial budget) or [2] offer valuable content which mobile users are willing to pay for.
Uncensored Google results requested and delivered by email
You really can't expect a decent answer to your question without presenting the needs of the company better. Is this company's website just an information website about the company, or do they actually provide some sort of web-based business? And if the latter is the case, is it something that mobile users would even be interested in? These are the kinds of things you have to decide, not just if websites for mobile devices are good in general. (This is slashdot, so of course you'll get the hypothetical/philophical answers to this general debate - but it doesn't seem to be what you want).
If your content isn't all static HTML and is actually available in a way that can be manipulated, making a stripped down version for mobile users really shouldn't be that hard.
As far as how many users would actually notice - I can't say. But since it shouldn't be a huge timesink, I don't see a reason not to.
This of course depends on the type of site; Newegg.com, for example, probably shouldn't attempt a full mobile store, but displaying current sale items or maybe (a much reduced version of) your account page so that you can track shipments wouldn't be too bad, and still offers customers some reason to visit.
I work @ Sprint and a lot of our customers that look at our PDA devices have been asking the sales people "Will it work with my bank site?" There is a demand, I think, for certain businesses to offer mobile access to accounts to pay bills and all that. However does say Intel really have a reason for a "mobile" site? Would General Motors need one? But if you're a service provider (cable, utility), financial institution, or a Google or Yahoo, then catering to a mobile audience at least partially, could be a bonus.
No sig for you!!
Just today I noticed a visitor with this browser string:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320)
No idea what he/she will actually see. Our site does not even support MSIE 4 anymore. But MSIE 4 on CE may be different?
We had 0.03% Windows CE visitors last year. I don't think I'll spend time on that.
The sad thing is that they probably will waste their points on you instead of modding up something insightful. The Slashdot moderation system isn't broken per-se; it's just that the moderators aren't educated enough. Kind of like the whole 2-party Democrat vs Republican shitfest we have every 4 years. Of course there are problems with the whole political process, so maybe that's not a great analogy, but you get the idea. So, as the parent said, waste your mod points on the ACs!
If you have a big audience on cells or pda's, you may want to optimize it a little more, doing things like putting a menu right at the top of the page, lot's of "back to tops", etc.
Once again, you won't be doing any of this without standards.
My Dell Axim X51v is Windows Mobile 5.0 based with a VGA screen. It's output in my logs is as follows:
Operating System: Microsoft WinCE
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320)
Javascript: version 1.2
Monitor Resolution: 480 x 640
Monitor Color Depth: 16 bits
It would be nice if more people designed sites that worked on PDAs but, as other posters have commented, if my PDA has access then usually my ultra-portable laptop can too so I just use that.
Anytime anybody asks these kinds of questions, it's just a vivid demonstration of how clueless said person is when it comes to just what this Intarweb thing is.
Rather than beat you over the head with your misunderstandings, let me just skip to the chase.
Design your sites in this order, and you'll never be concerned with these kinds of questions again.
That's it. That's all there is to it. When you're done, you've got a Web site that looks great on all platforms and validates to all meaningful standards. And, if it weren't for Microsoft, you could reasonably forget the last two steps.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
How about making the site accessible for screen readers to assist the disabled. If you look into it, you will find that It has a lot in common with mobile users... Nobody can remember 15 menu items when they hear them, and then navigate back to them. Nobody can understand pages when they are described if they are too complicated.
You need to radically simplify presentation to make them comfortably usable by the bandwidth impaired, be it visual bandwidth in terms of vision, or using magnifiers, or using a PDA, or in terms of having the keep the structure in you head while listening to the page being
described.
If the company is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and employees are expected to access the site, then they are pretty much compelled to make it accessible. You can
get PDA support for free riding on that.
(sorry to be Mr Bleeding Obvious here)
After redesigning our entire site I set about writing parts of it to work with my pocket pc screen. While the Ipaq I use leaves a lot to be desired for it's inability to render CSS it does do a fairly decent job with page data. I took our front page article feeds and made them available in limited text only format as well as the major practice area's. This way a casual browser to our ppc site would see basically the same info on our main page on their pocket pc. Once I can find uses for it we will add more features but so far of the users to our site, awstats shows 4 visitors with PPC devices and one of them was me. Was it worth it business wise? Not at all. Was it worth it programming/hobby wise? Sure.
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
If your site is written properly, i.e. using CSS for layout, then at the very least you can simply disable CSS for mobile visitors, not very pretty but doesn't block any content. The best option would be to have a style sheet with it's media set to handheld to tailor the content they see. Hide unnecessary stuff, and format the rest in a compact fashion:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld" href="handheld.css"Opera is useful for testing these styles (Shift+F11) and the Web developers toolbar adds this feature to firefox. A very well made site compatible with handhelds is none other than opera.com, everything on their site has a well optimised handheld version.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
The theory is, these devices are quite common, and more people would use them if more sites supported them. I like Google Mobile, I use a handful of other sites that are compatible, including Snapstream.net for Beyond TV (now that's a slick mobile site- it autodetects Windows CE and Pilot, and shrinks back to a subset that works wonderfully for finding a show you just heard about and scheduling it for recording to your home PC, which allows you to download it back to your device for later watching- completely cool closed loop).
Now for best practices- go light on the graphics, better if you MUST have pictures should be a link to the picture, not an IMG tag. Text only. Few people have the newer Windows Mobile 5.0 devices with the hi-res screen- think 240 pixels wide. These devices are great for vertical scrolling, bad for side scrolling. Keep entry to links or single field with a submit button- javascript may not work well, and typing is a real pain on these devices. Same idea with pictures- think 240x240 or 240x320 at most.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
50% of my browsing is mobile with a Nokia 6600 and Opera 8.51. If a site doesn't work with that, I don't bother coming back with a desktop browser unless I really, really have to - like to print out an airline bording pass.
It is not difficult.
Depends on the website. If it is likely to be used by people on the go, then yes, I'd say it was worth it. E.g. TFL (Transport For London) have a reasonable site that can be used by people on GPRS enabled mobile phones with the limited browsers they contain. You can lookup schedules and the best route from location(a) to location(b) for your needs. Very handy when you're in London and don't know the system well or need to know estimates of when you'll get somewhere. (the address is http://www.tflwap.gov.uk/ for the mobile friendly site)
Same for the UK rail network (National Rail - http://mobile.nationalrail.co.uk/ ) and at least some of the train companies.
Various other companies have cut-down sites for mobile use, although I have seen a few really disappointing ones (british airways comes to mind)
If, however, the website is for, say, a company that sells cardboard boxes and only deals in bulk orders from other companies, then I'd say the usefulness of a mobile site would be rather less.
What is sorely needed is a standard place to look for mobile content. Every bloody place is different!
Yes, they should
make their web
pages small enough
for cellphone
users to read.
sulli
RTFJ.
Most sites are so bad they won't collect much data from pocketpc users anyway. Nobody will visit twice.
First, browsers on PocketPC are horrific. My pocketpc has more ram available to it that most computers I used in the mid nineties, yet the browsers on them are horrible. (and I don't Just mean IE, although it's one of the worst).
I think the questions you should be asking are: Is the website such that users may want access to the information on something like a pocketpc. Is it a subset of the information, just employees/staff (think intranet).
Any movie listing site, for example, should support the widest range of access. I want to know what movies are playing when I am out and about. I could be in a restaurant and want to look up the listings. I don't really need an option to view a trailer though.
The only things I've found myself doing on my mobile device (a small, underpowered, but nifty, Samsung i500-ph through Sprint) consist of:
* Reference lookups (ie, directions)
* News updates (Drudge is surprisingly accessible, and many blogs work too); I tend to do this after receiving a "Breaking News" SMS message from one of my local TV stations (nbc739.com)
* Sites that use interactivity
To expound on the later, I run a couple of different "portal" type sites that allow me to log in, view profiles, and get information on other people. With that sort of customization available, we're creating mobile-friendly calendars, phone lists, photo galleries, and news updates, all to allow people to access things wirelessly and get "what they need."
If your website is basically a brochure, then no, you probably don't need a mobile-friendly site per-se (although you do need to make it WAI-accessible for the disabled). If your site has something to do on it that someone might want to do when they are away from a terminal, then by all means start developing. As someone else said, it's almost a chicken-and-egg problem. But once people see that they can access your features more conveniently, I'd wager you'll see usage improve.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
The Verizon network is quite fast and the screen is big enough to be useful and even pleasant IF the site is done correctly. I'm reading slashdot and responding now.
If there were more sites I'd be a happy man.
At the very least, a business site should have mobile friendly 'about us' and 'contact us' pages for people like me. I get real value out of this thing even though it costs $50 a month.
I'm sure I am a very desirable demographic for many businesses.
From the w3c's Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
People have strong, but divergent opinions on this. The absolute minimum being 96 x 96 pixels. Strong support is expressed for 128 x 128, however a vocal group supports bigger still.
This article states that the most mobile users use thier devices for email and weather not browsing websites.
Hope this helps....
unless you deliver a mobile application on your site or target a mobile market, there's really no reason to support such devices.
How do I insure that my site will be compatible with mobiles? Is there a program that will emulate the various handhelds that I can use to tweak my site?
A smart business should design their site to degrade gracefully, so that if not a fancy layout with color matching and floating transparent backgrounds, someone can at least get the info they need/want.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I think the only time I've ever been able to tolerate a cell phone's Web browser (or a cell phone, for that matter) was during the summer when I used it to hack an MSN connection on my laptop. Long story short, it didn't really involve anything illegal, I just had to Google for a nameserver that would work. After that things were perfect, or at least as perfect as things can be on a dial-up connection... :-)
Since then the most mobile Internet-accessible device I've put up with is my slightly newer Dell Latitude CP with a NETGEAR 802.11b adapter – which is now replacing my old Micron XPE that I've had for years and years and years and years... don't get me started on all the horror stories I have of hacking Internet connections with that thing!
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Almost exactly the comment I was going to post.
The answer to "should businesses have mobile friendly websites" is MU!
If the website is designed correctly, it will already be "mobile" friendly (as well as everything-else friendly).
There are still some carriers that don't let you outside their "Walled Garden" so this just limits the potential market further and increases barriers to adoption.
they should ONLY IF there is a specific need. Like the company I work for (TDS Telecom) doesnt have (many) people accessing it from a PDA or mobile so there would be no need, just wait until you get home to your compy 386 or lappy 486. On the other hand, my little "company" would make use of something like that for server stats. I can design some wasteful bandwidth loathing website that lists all my stats or something small, quick, and to the point for my mobile or my pda. That could be useful. Yea, but close enough -- if you dont need it, dont bother. If you do, then do it or shut your corn hole. Mmm, corn..
Menya zovut Shnur
It doesn't seem like there's going to be many users with Palms or Pocket PCs that aren't smartphones, so if you're going to develop a mobile version it makes sense to make it a cell phone version (meaning no JavaScript and only basic HTML or WML) rather than a PDA version. But unless your site has a reason to be frequently accessed by cell-phone users (such as that you might offer maps, phone numbers, etc) there doesn't seem to be much reason to develop a mobile version. I only use my cell phone web browser to get maps and info about what I'm doing. It's just too small for plain surfing. Users will probably be frustrated no matter what you do just because the screen is so small and most non-smartphones don't have a keyboard.
This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3...
<sneer accent="french">How naïve to imagine that software development is driven by market forces.</sneer>
illegitimii non ingravare
There's plenty of modpoints to go around.
I used to read Slashdot every morning for a while on the train on my phone/pda. It's not very mobile friendly. Logging in is a pain, and although with graphics off it is bearable, it's far from ideal. Worse, is all the extra garbage that stills comes down with the text. There is a real case for some sites to be mobile friendly, but designers seem to want to make it all far too pretty, when all I really want is convenience. But when you do use a site that is mobile friendly, it's a snap to operate - especially if you have a touch screen as many new generation phones do. It's not like the designers need to drop to the lowest common denominator - most people who need the service are happy to find a higher level model. But even finding sites that support higher level models is difficult... And I truly wish I could do my Ebay-ing from the phone more easily... Ideal for bid-sniping. GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
The only things you need to do to cause your site to be accessible by mobile devices are things that you should be doing anyway.
Don't assume anything about the client's display resolution, font size, inclination to display images, or willingness to use plugins, java, or javascript. Just write clean, correct html, and it will deal with diversity of client traits; that's one of the primary things that the language was designed to do.
If you choose to layer other froofraw on your site (eg, javascript, flash, images), that's fine, but make sure that it degrades gracefully and automatically when those are absent from the client.
The absolute worst thing you can do is write one narrowly-targetting monstrosity in flash, and then add a second narrowly-targetted monstrosity in wap. Just write one site correctly, and it will serve both these purposes--and next year's as well.
Here in the UK, mobile web browsing is (I believe!) starting to become a lot more popular. And it is NOT a matter of simply creating an extra CSS stylesheet for smaller browsers - ever heard of WML?
Mobile internet has so much potential - the other day, on the train coming back from a meeting, I was able to watch decent quality (i.e. good audio and non-grainy pictures on a 2 or 3 inch screen) LIVE television. I can get over 300Kbps on my phone Internet connection and am able to do a lot of stuff a few years ago I woulnd't have thought possible. Sure, there are smaller screens, but since when did fancy graphics and wasted space == good content?
Would I want to visit the site while I'm out with friends, while in another town, or waiting for a plane?
That's it. If you feel your potential client would, then I would go for it, but if you are met with a bunch of hypothetical maybes, then maybe it's not worth it.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Seems we just had an article on this, explaining how Opera does it. Perhaps it's not the device that makes sites bad, but just the default choice of browser the PDA guys ship with it.
It was important enough to mention your client's boss wants a handheld-friendly website, but you neglect to mention what the website is all about. Context is everything.
Are you providing technology/services that can be managed by a web browser? Or is this a shopping cart for buying rocking chairs?
If you provide a web-based management interface for configuring customer services... something a technology consultant might actually NEED when equipped only with a handheld... then yes I can see the business case. It all depends how the case is framed.
Of course, if you have to generate each "site" from scratch, sans templates like "version 3" websites did 10 years ago, you're stuck. You can only adapt if you've outgrown "Photoshop Slice And Dice". If you have outgrown the Old Way of Doing things, you probably can support other interesting technologies like Section 508, Accessibility, and XML. These are all RELATED and development work done on these are cross-beneficial to the others.
Disclaimer: I browse -- almost daily -- on a Windows 2003 Mobile, a Samsung i-700. It would be foolish to advocate mobile browsing IMO without tying it to at least 1 other technology I listed above.. otherwise you are dead-ended on a browser-specific site that goes nowhere. You can imagine future content changes leaving the old handheld site behind.
Is there a search engine that returns "PDA friendly" websites on the top of the results? If so, that would help. If not, why not?
The whole "users drive content"/"content drives users" (straw man) and "use CSS" (more in depth question) arguments aside, the larger question for me would be, is your site such in the marketplace that John Smith mobile user would come to it in his web browsing? If you're a company with something to offer John while he's driving down the freeway, maybe it's something you look into. If you're, say, a media development company, maybe John should go to his desktop, since a mobile version of your site wouldn't be either very effective, or of much use to someone browsing it.
If your client's CEO is the only person in the world who seems to be interested in browsing your company's site on a mobile device, then the cost factor makes the issue a non-starter. Even using CSS, someone has to develop the handheld CSS, then regression test your site against both the regular and the handheld versions. Now, if you have weblogs which indicate that you're getting X number of requests for your main site page, where X is some percentage that seems of interest to your IT group, then maybe you should consider it.
Final answer - is the mobile segment something that would bring users to your site?
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
I use a cell phone in three different countries- Canada, US, and the UK (prepay, but their data/wap rates aren't horrid). I also have "mobile web" or WAP access enabled on all of my phones- for one reason... When you're out a lot, you can't always take out your laptop to find out something simple like the weather, or who's playing what game when. But frankly... there's a lot to be improved on.
Here's an idea: Being able to check my TD Canada account via my nokia. I'd love to be able to see i have $62.50 in my chequing account without having to waste money at an ATM, or hauling out my laptop. Yes, I know, I could just use a data cable (no Bluetooth) and a PocketPC/Palm, but honestly, too much work
Frankly, with Teens (like me, a first year in University) becoming more and more technology savvy, things like WAP will gain more acceptance. Most people don't realize that using something like verizon's "GET IT NOW" is WAP based. And most kids can figure it out.
So what's stopping someone from really using WAP?
To reference the poster who talked about the "Duette"- they map out the net for you, and there's no "address" bar. Frankly, anything short of a smartphone has shit browsers and no access to anything short of what the provider gives you- it's there... just buried. If someone made a simple browser, and companies wrote simple wap pages, we'd be set.
Including Slashdot. Trying to read it from a PocketPC is death.
Look I write my pages in xhtml/css so porting to a small screen/device isn't much trouble at all so it really comes down to if they are going to pay me for it. If they do that's great and I'll do it...Though when you add reality mobile web browsers aren't in common usage because end users find them to hard ... Hell they find MSIE on their desktops to hard. So I can honestly see things like the Nokia 770 being the only type of device that really takes off for mobile browsing and it uses full page code anyway - with some extra Opera tweaks for large scale pages.
I personally like the idea of sites working on as many screens, devices, OSes, browsers as possible so I'd do it just for that warm fuzzy feeling that that 1 in 100000000 customers sees that you've thought of them and you gain +1 respect from them which could come in handy for their next purchase of a product like the one you supply.
I ate your fish.
This company is a mobile-only web design company:
http://www.mobits.com/
i don't think so. it only encourages cell phone companies to keep their slow data networks.
but that isn't the primary reason for me. if my mobile device isn't capable of displaying full web pages (i.e. small laptop) then i see no point in a mobile device.
the two things I want to do on the go are
1. email/message
2. use the internet
of course, if you can do #1 (with java/javascript/dynamic pages/active content, etc) then you automatically can do #2
which is why i have yet to own a pda or smartphone. i think a 12inch ibook is small enough.
and some of those micronotebooks with pentium ms intrigue me. i think there's toshiba one with a 9 inch screen that still has 1024x768 resolution. and a full keyboard (well...a little small...but better than treo keyboards). seemed fast, affordable, too. it could even have a dvd reader if you just attatched a dock on the bottom which made it thicker. i think i'd rather have a brickish thing than a thin slab.
During the company re-branding last year I had to redo the website with new colours and images and layout and menus and everything. Since I used CSS obsessively it was reasonably easy to make a functional and relatively pretty website for mobiles as well. Just include a stylesheet of changes for media="handheld".
No phone will show anything worthwhile decently, get a PDA and use that as your aim. Also some very long/wide pages will need to be redone for the small screen, can't be helped I'm afraid.
Hope it helps
"-- ANYONE who claims more than months or even weeks uptime in XP isn't applying patches!"
;P
either that, or they are not online
bang on, brother. design it right, and you'll also have something that disabled users can read and navigate successfully too. blind users with screenreaders can't use flash or crappily-designed webpages, for example.
My issue with websites are their tendency to over rely on IE specific coding, or to actively put in blocking mechanisms that do the "you can't use this site with anything but IE 6.0" stuff. Obviously, these won't work at all on a mobile device, even a PPC, since that version is only listed as 4.0. One of my banks does this now, and it really pisses me off that I can no longer check from my Zodiac 2 palm. Personally I tend to look at companies that do this as lazy, since there is always a way to code things that follow the xhtml standard and still get things done the way you want them for your site.
I've often found myself resisting something that the boss wants because it not only fails to justify itself, it creates a long term maintenance burden.
And figured out later that while I was right in my narrow analysis, in the broader analysis I was wrong.
Sometimes solving a more general problem is easier than solving a specific problem. It's always more cost effective than solving an endless sequence of specific problems. If you keep an open mind, you often give the boss what he wants -- and more than he ever asked for. It seems to me that best web development practices would both help a great deal with this problem and with downstream maintenance. The reason we don't do the right thing most of the time is the pressure from management for quick results.
So, in that case what you have here is an opportunity. The boss has something in your purview that he cares about. Depending on how you frame this problem, you either have a pointless exercise in satisfying a CEO whim, or you have a CEO who has stumbled on the importance of separating content and presentation. If you treat it like the former, you're committing to a permenant doubling of effort on everything you do so that it will look nice on the CEO's PDA. If you treat it like the latter, you can make the CEO happy while reducing your downstream maintenance costs.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.