As there are several threads about mobile porn, Iphones etc I wanted to see if anyone has tips or know how to create a mobile site. What is required for a site to be considered a “mobile site”.
Are there any standard rules or guides?
Re: How to make a mobile site?
Here’s a few I can think of…
- XHTML
- limited width
- navigation that's easy to use on a touch screen with big fingers
- reduce the size of graphics and videos for slow cell networks
Remember that you can use < link rel=“alternate” media=“handheld”…> to specify the mobile version of the page on your regular pages. But remember that Apple wants its users to experience “the real web” so it doesn’t redirect iPhone users to mobile pages.
Re: How to make a mobile site?
What about CSS? It looks fine on my Blackberry but I’m sure some won’t be able to handle it.
Re: How to make a mobile site?
When I sat through some seminars on mobile web a couple years ago they said CSS was a must since it’s bandwidth efficient. They did suggest using percentages in your CSS instead of things like absolute pixels.
One of the other suggestions was repeating the main navigation at top and bottom of the page and in the middle if the page is very long.
Really though, look at the phones that make up most of your mobile traffic, optimize for those and forget the rest. I’d optimize for iPhone, Android and possibly iPad (though iPad is probably fine with regular web pages provided you think in terms of no Flash).
Re: How to make a mobile site?
What about formats, like videos… Say I’m reviewing a site and try and tell if it’s “mobile friendly”… what would I look for? A certain video format? Images normally work I guess. But maybe navigation or slideshows could be a problem…