“As a general rule the web does not work very well on
mobile devices at the moment, even though almost two-thirds of
mobile devices are web capable,” Dominique Hazaël-Massieux of the
W3C Mobile Web Initiative told the BCS-sponsored World Wide Web
Conference last month.
On the plus side, such devices are becoming cheaper and the
mobile web service is moving away from the “walled garden” approach
taken by some service providers, who have limited what their
customers can access.
In fact, in future we will see mobile-only web users, but only
if future development work is centred around the user and not the
technology, as it is now.
“Ultimately, the web will become an omnipresent service platform
available on any device at any time,” said Daniel Appelquist,
senior technology strategist at Vodafone. “In future all user
experiences of this ‘service platform’ will differ, according to
the individual users’ requirements.”
The essential need is for one web, which works consistently on
all devices, which exploits device capabilities and can be easily
tested on actual devices.
With this in mind, website designers should aim to use short
URLs and navigation bars, balance navigation and access keys, and
avoid the use of image maps, pop-ups, auto refresh and
redirection.
In order to produce a mobile-friendly website designers should
also avoid using externally linked resources, ensure the
suitability of the content within a mobile context, use clear
language, limit content to user request, limit scrolling to one
direction, and use non–text alternatives where possible.
James Pearce, of the Device Description Working Group,
highlighted the need for globally accessible and sustainable data
and services, which provide device description information
applicable to content adaptation. With this in mind, the working
group is gathering information on developing a suitable information
repository for mobile usage.
According to Charles McCathie Nevile from web browser group
Opera, the biggest problem that mobile devices currently face is
that there are too many different platforms to accommodate and to
write for. However, it should be possible in future to load Java
code directly into mobiles to access the web.
He added that Mobile Web 2.0 will be all content based, whereby
all content, both archive and current, will be easily accessible to
all from their mobile devices and instant messaging will be built
into the mobile webpage.
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