The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has published best
practice guidelines for designing websites to be viewed on mobile
devices.
At present the web does not work particularly well on mobile
devices, although almost two-thirds of devices have web browsing
capabilities.
The guidelines, Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, aim to offer
practical advice on creating content that will work well on
mobiles, avoiding pitfalls such as pop-ups and page-scrolling,
which can cause problems for mobile users. They were drawn up by a
W3C working group with representation from 30 organisations,
including AOL, AT&T, Ericsson, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and
Vodafone.
Website and content management system designers are invited to
test the guidelines, and a collaborative “wiki” document has been
set up to collect observations and suggestions on techniques and
implementation experience.
Working group chair Daniel Appelquist said, “There are many
devices, but one web. Practical guidelines on how to create content
once that can be delivered to the plethora of devices saves
developers and organisations time and money, and has the added
benefit of not breaking the web.”
Last month the sale of .mobi web domains began, in a move aimed
at encouraging users to visit websites designed to be viewed on
mobiles.