All Web Developers Should Have Access to a Device Lab (Video)

This interview with Googler Pete LePage took place at Google I/O 2014, where Pete and coworker Matt Gaunt set up a Device Lab with 46 different devices on their display wall. The point wasn't to show off Google's coolness as much as it was to let developers see how their websites displayed on as wide a range of mobile devices as possible. This is reminiscent of the last century's Any Browser campaign, which was set up to encourage developers to make sites that worked right in any browser instead of having a WWW full of sites "best viewed in Exploroscape" that displayed poorly in other browsers.

Today, the trick is to make a site that is fully functional across a wide range of devices with different size screens that a user might decide to view in landscape mode one day and portrait mode the next. Google is happy to share their MiniMobileDeviceLab with you to help set up multi-unit displays. Pete also suggests checking out PageSpeed Insights and Web Fundamentals even if you're a skilled and experienced Web designer, because those two Google sites are chock full of information on how to make sure your site works right on most devices and in most popular browsers. (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

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[rossdee]

everybody sjould have above average income, and only use renewable sources of energy.

Meanwhile in the real world...

Re:All web devs shouldn't *need* a device lab

[0123456]

Here's another idea. How about we create a whole new format which separates content from presentation, and then the display program can figure out the best way to display it on that device.

We could call the format, I don't know, 'HTML'? And the display program, hmm, maybe a 'web browser'?

Oh, crap. We tried that, and then the developers decided they just MUST be able to specify exaclty where everything is displayed on the screen, which is why they're now having to rebuild all their sites to work on mobile devices.

Good way to ensure job security, I guess.