About Us

Welcome to the Mobile Web Design blog. This blog is written by Janine Warner and David LaFontaine.

We keep an eye on the trends that are shaping the tablet, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Blackberry Vook, and all of the other devices changing the way we read, watch, and produce information.

If you’re looking for design tips, visit the Mobile Web Design section of our web site at DigitalFamily.com.

The rising popularity of the mobile web means that web designers must ensure their sites look as good on a 1.5-inch cell phone screen as they do on a 60-inch plasma TV. And modern design must meet the evolution from mouse to touch screen.

This blog is devoted to helping you create sites that take advantage of the best the mobile web has to offer.

Until we truly reach the always on, always available, connections of tomorrow, we need to find the fastest, most effective ways to create mobile sites that make the most important information available today — when you need it, where you need it. Our goal is to design information to be as frictionless and accessible as possible on every device on the planet.

In this blog, I invite you to explore best practices in mobile web design, as well as trends and innovations in how we gather, share, and produce information.  Please e-mail me your comments and suggestions for great sites to feature or articles to refer to, and please comment on the articles on this blog.

This site is not about Mobile Applications, It’s about Designing Mobile Sites

There’s an App for just about anything, or is there… Apps are cool, but everyone needs a mobile web site, whether they create an App or not. You can find many great resources for Mobile App developers online,  this site is about creating mobile web sites.

If you want your web site to look good and work well on the majority of mobile devices, this blog is for you.

The main problem: lack of standards

If you thought designing for Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox was a challenge, brace yourself for the utter chaos of the mobile web.

Today’s web sites have to stand up to the rigors of a whole new crop of mobile web browsers and handsets.

Designing for the Safari browser on an iPhone is quite different from designing for the many different Blackberry handsets, and then you add Google Android, Windows Mobile, and things get complicated fast when it comes to testing.

How many phones to you need?

I have many mobile phones I can test web sites with, but I’m a fan of phone freaks since way back. I have an iPhone, a Blackberry , Nokia, Palm , and that’s jut the ones that are in my office at the moment. I’ve have an iPad soon, despite it’s disappointing launch, and I’ve had a Kindle since version 1.0.

But what really makes me think I can figure out how best to design sites for the mobile web is that I have a team of testers who review site designs with me. We’re working on running a series of tests to better develop best practices across as many devices as possible, including Google’s Android and Windows Mobile.

How many web sites do you need?

Some people create many sites with variations for each device. Others create three sites: one for smartphones, one for touch screens, and another for limited use feature phones.

At a minimum, you should consider creating a one special version of your web site that is mobile-optimized. That doesn’t mean you have to completely recreate everything on your main site on for mobile, but get 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.

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’re an airline, you may make checking in and confirming flight times the most prominent part of your mobile screen, and you’ll find that making interactive features, like reservation systems work on a mobile phone are far more complex than simple text and map sites.

The Challenges of Flash on Mobile

Perhaps the most dramatic limitation of mobile web display is the complete lack of Flash support on iPhones and other mobile devices. Adobe Flash is a popular program for creating everything from animated ad banners to complete interactive web sites, but if you visit a Flash site on an iPhone or Blackberry you get a broken icon. Until Adobe figures out how to appease the mobile browser and device creators, you can’t use Flash on your mobile site if you target iPhone or Blackberry users.

If you’re using Flash for audiences in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere, you may want to create altnerative mobile sites for your iPhone visitors. If you’re site’s designed with Flash, consider creating a simple version right away for mobile visitors.

Over the coming weeks and months, I will be testing various design options, using CSS and other web standards, to create both simple and complex web designs for mobile web browsers.

I invite my readers and friends to participate with comments and sites to test. I hope you will contribute your opinions and help analyze the results. I’ll also explore some of the challenges that are specific to mobile, such as touch screens and the way limited bandwidth and unpredictable connectivity affect usability and design.

Because we teach mobile web design and write books about designing for the mobile web and the iPhone and iPad, we are constantly testing features and templates, and include tips for designing sites in those programs.

We also provide Dreamweaver Training and Expression Web Training,  and Tips for using WordPress and Joomla.

Send your feedback, comments, and submissions via email janine@digitalfamily.com.

Learn more at our Web design training site: www.DigitalFamily.com