The distinction between the mobile web and the "full" web is getting fuzzy. We have millions of phones running full-web browsers such as Opera, Safari, S60Webkit and NetFront that can display almost any web site. Not only can these browsers handle JavaScript but the latest S60WebKit can play Flash .flv videos in the browser and it plus Opera Mobile 8.65 and 9.5 do a decent job with AJAX pages.
Web developers should be asking "Which version of my pages should I serve to these advanced browsers, the stripped down mobile version, a special 'iPhone' page or the full page as delivered to Firefox and IE?"
Conventional wisdom has it that delivering a page designed for mobile to any handheld device is best. Mobile screen size is small, scrolling is harder than on a PC and only a subset of most site's content is relevant on a phone. I generally agree with the conventional wisdom but with one caveat.
Give users the option to load either the full or the mobile version of your site regardless of what browser they are using. It's great to redirect mobile browsers to a fast loading, easy to navigate mobile version but there should also be a way to get to the same page that you serve to PC browsers. The best way to do this is with a link labeled "Full Version" or something similar on every mobile page. I like to put he "Full Site" link at the bottom of the page on the theory that anyone with a browser capable of viewing the full page should have no problem navigating all the way to the end of a mobile page and if by the time they get there they haven't found what they are looking for it's time to offer them the option of seeing the full content of my site.
I also believe that there should be a link to the mobile edition on every page of the full site so that users who land there with their phones have the option to try the mobile edition. It's a good promotional tactic too, reminding PC users that they can use your site on their phones. The "Mobile Edition" link should be at the very top of the page to make it easy to find even with a limited mobile browser that can't load the whole page.
As for "iPhone" sites, there's a place for something that's between a traditional mobile site and a full blown PC version. Most of the iPhone sites I've seen have a single column design, 100-200 KB page weight, a little JavaScript (mostly for rollovers) and no Flash. What I don't like is that iPhone sites tend to use browser detection to limit their use to only the iPhone, in spite of the fact that these pages would render very well on other full-web mobile browsers. We need a campaign to "Free the iWeb" - allowing non-iPhones to browse it.
I thought I was doing a pretty good job of serving the appropriate pages to mobile visitors to this blog while still giving them options. If you went to WapReview.com/blog or any of the pages under it with most mobile browsers including Opera Mobile, NetFront, S60Webkit and Opera Mini you were redirected to the mobile version of whatever page you requested. There's a "Full Site" link at the bottom of each page that sets a session cookie to override browser detection and render the full version on all subsequent requests until you close the browser or navigate away from WapReview.com
Last week I got an email from an unhappy
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posted by Dennis Bournique
July 10, 2008 @ 6:26 am
7 View Comments
