I have a pile of mobile phones at my disposal for testing web sites — you may not be enough of a freak to make that kind of investment, but you don’t have to.
My goal on this site is to start publishing the results of my testing and invite others to comment, test, and submit code for review.
I have an iPhone, a Blackberry, a Nokia, aPalm, a Kindle, and that’s just what I have handy at the moment. I’m always collecting more, and I have a team of testers who review site designs with me using other devices.
We’re working on running a series of tests to better develop best practices across as many devices and browsers as possible.
Among the ones we’re already testing: Safari on the iPhone, the new mobile Firefox browser, Google’s Android, and Windows Mobile.
If you want to be considered for a position as a tester on my team, send me a note telling my why you’d like to play the mobile design testing game with us.
Some of the coolest sites on the Internet are designed to deliver a different version to the iPhone, than to Nokia phones, or to someone using a Blackberry (you could create a different version for each model), and that’s just the beginning.
Even if you don’t have time for all that, I recommend creating at least one special version of your web site that is mobile-optimized, or at least mobile friendly.
Then you just set up an ‘auto-detect’ script on your web server and deliver one version to computer users, and the other to cell phones.
That doesn’t mean you have to completely recreate everything on your web site for mobile, but put the most important information — like you’re phone number and a map to your office or restaurant — where people can find it when, say, they want to call you from the mobile phone they’re using to try to find you on the way there…
As you plan for a mobile site, consider how your visitors are likely to use your site when they are mobile, not just the limitations of the screen. If you get a lot of traffic to your pet store or accounting firm, make sure people can find you easily when they’re mobile.
I am dedicated to helping you find practical ways to redesign web sites for mobile phones that work today
If you have the time, budget, and a complex interactive web site, the more you can optimize it for the differences among the limitations of a feature phone, the new opportunities of a touchscreen, and the easy access of smart phones, the better.
If you want to be able to show off your photos or other creative work, create a mobile-optimized slide show or add video (YouTube is one of the best places to post video that works on mobile).
As computers evolve from the mouse and keyboard, to the touch screen, and media moves from paper and television screen to monitors of all size and shapes, we must find new and innovative ways to make it easy to interact with text, images, video and more.
With all the new devices on the market this year — from the last version of the Amazon Kindle to the Apple iPad to the Barns and Noble Nook — there have never been more ways to explore content in the palm of your hand.
If you want to see what a next generation, multimedia publication might look like, check out this inspiring video by designers from Bonnier’s Research & Development team on how to make text, images, and more come to life in the emerging world of the touchscreen.
Have you tried a mobile web template for Wordpress? I’d love to know what you think of them and why you prefer one over another. Leave your comments here, or email me directly: janine@digitalfamily.com.
Mobile Switcher Settings
Here’s my post from June, 2009… watch for updates on more mobile Wordpress plugins soon.
If you’ve been looking for the ultimate tool kit for making your blog mobile friendly, look no further than the dotMobi WordPress Mobile Pack
Not only will you find mobile themes that make your blog look good on mobile devices, you’ll even find a mobile administration panel designed to make it easy to update your blog through a mobile device.
These are the features you’ll get in the mobi pack (according to the developer’s site):
Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
UPDATE: Seems the plugin on this page is not there anymore. I plan to test more plugins on the growing list on the Joomla plugins page http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/search/mobile
If you’ve seen a mobile design plugin you like for Joomla, please post a comment below and let me know or email me directly janine@digitalfamily.com
——-
previous post:
Jen Kramer, a wonderful [...]
Designing for the wireless web just got a little more difficult in the short term – but in the long term, maybe a bit easier. Firefox, the browser that now owns the majority of market share just released a browser that works on Nokia’s Maemo platform.
What this means for designers is that sanity – so [...]
You’re web site may look great in your favorite browser on your computer, but that doesn’t mean it will display well to everyone else who views it on Macs and Windows computers, using Firefox, or Safari, or Internet Explorer (in any of the many editions which display code differently).
Making your site lo0k good in all [...]
Get Married magazine uses Microsoft Tag barcodes to add mobile component to print ads.
The ads for high-end wedding related merch all have little custom barcodes that look like this.
Magazines and newspapers have been toying with the idea of “upselling” advertisers by including barcodes or imaging software that allows readers to point their smartphones at a [...]
Gavin Davies of Box UK makes a great case for delivering tailored versions of a mobile site based on the capabilities of a device, not on the type of device or browser being used.
This approach gets at two of the biggest challenges of mobile web design — how to design for the vast number of different [...]
As a reminder that “mobile” means so much more than “cellphone,” the newest entry to the e-reader space comes out this month. The specs look pretty good – 11.5″ screen, 1200×1600 resolution, touchscreen navigation, 4gigs with SD card expansion, 1/4 inch thick and the batteries last a week.
I have a pile of mobile phones at my disposal for testing web sites — you may not be enough of a freak to make that kind of investment, but you don’t have to.
