The past couple of years have seen numerous new Web-capable mobile devices arise. Some of which include: Apple’s iPhone and its Safari browser, the creation of Google’s Android platform and Webkit-based browser, the rise of so called “full Web” browsers (Nokia’s S60, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, among others) and the early development of Firefox’s mobile version. These mobile browsers improve users’ experiences, giving them access to websites formerly off-limits to most mobile devices. Indeed, as a 2008 Nielsen Media Research report highlighted, mobile devices have increased traffic by an average of 13% across several popular websites.

With almost 50% of mobile Web market-share utilising the Safari Web browser, Web Developers across the globe can rest assured that almost half of the people accessing their websites via a mobile platform will be able to view their sites without any major inconsistencies.

Does this mean that we do not have to concern ourselves with developing a mobile version of our websites or provide additional support for these devices?

The reality is that a site designed specifically with mobility in mind will always provide a much better user experience to mobile users as suggested by the W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices, released in July 2008 as a W3C Recommendation.
Part of this Recommendation consists of a list of 60 noteworthy recommendations that anyone serious about developing for the mobile market should get to know.

I’ll list 10 of them to whet your geeky appetite:

• Exploit device capabilities to provide an enhanced user experience.
• Keep the URIs of site entry points short.
• Provide only minimal navigation at the top of the page.
• Ensure that content is suitable for use in a mobile context.
• Limit content to what the user has requested.
• Divide pages into usable but limited size portions.
• Avoid large or high resolution images except where critical information would otherwise be lost.
• Use style sheets to control layout and presentation, unless the device is known not to support them. Keep style sheets small.
• Use terse, efficient markup.

We must keep in mind that most mobile platforms have some serious processing and memory limitations. Mobile device input is often difficult when compared with use of a desktop device equipped with a keyboard. Mobile devices often have only a very limited keypad, with small keys, and there is frequently no pointing device.

Take a look at LinkedIn and Facebook’s mobile sites as examples of an interface optimised for mobile platforms. Note the lack of images and also note the simple URI’s; m.linkedincom and m.facebook.com. Now, if more domains follow this practice, mobile users will have an easy-to-remember way of finding your mobile optimised website…

Marius Nel is the newest member of our design team. Currently finishing his Masters in IT and holding an undergraduate degree in Economics and Business Management, he brings an array of skills to the design world at Quirk.