The Skinny On The Mobile Web

transcript

InfoCamp Seattle 2007

The Skinny onThe Mobile Web

Nick FinckOctober 13th, 2007InfoCamp, Seattle

Who the hell is this guy?

• Blue FlavorDirector of User Experience, co-founder, partnerhttp://www.blueflavor.com

• Digital Web MagazinePublisher and founderhttp://www.digital-web.com

• User Experience NetworkSeattle Local Ambassadorhttp://www.uxnet.org

Web & Print

• XHTML✓Well formed✓Semantically correct

• CSS✓Screen media type✓Print media type

digital-web.comA good example of designing for both web and print

So what? That’s old news!

Web & Mobile

• XHTML✓Well formed✓Semantically correct

• CSS✓Screen media type✓Handheld media type

tipped.co.ukA good example of designing for both web and mobile

So just a new CSS file? Easy!

Not so fast...

Mobile Specific

Specific Mobile

• XHTML✓Well formed✓Semantically correct✓Highly optimized

• CSS✓Handheld media type (sometimes even screen media type)✓Highly optimized

getleaflets.comA good example of designing for a specific mobile context (iPhone)

What the $#@%!!

But...

• Why would you want to design for a specific mobile context?

• What about the “One Web” where one size fits all?

• Won’t the Standards Nazis lynch you?

NYTimes.comMinimum 30 Seconds to lo load 796kbplus requests to multiple servers

NY Times on Getleaflets.comMaximum of 7 seconds to lo load 30kb

http://nytimes.com http://app.getleaflets.com/nyt/

Lets Get Technical!

Fitts’s Law

In ergonomics, Fitts's law is a model of human movement which predicts the time required to rapidly move to a target area, as a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target.”

Description of Fitts’s LawWikipedia

Not so good

Way better

Optimized Markup

Very typical non-optimized markup highly optimized markup

Optimized UI

Very typical non-optimized UI highly optimized UI

Resources

Mobile Development• dotMobi Mobile Web Developers Guide by Brian Fling

Fitts’s Law• Fitts's UI Law Applied to the Web by Scott Berkun• A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts by Bruce Tognazzini

Context & Mobile Design• The Mobile Context by C. Enrique Ortiz• About Context and the Mobile Web by Rudy De Waele• Designing the Mobile User Experience by Richard F. Cecil

Thank you.

Questions? Comments?nick@blueflavor.com

The Skinny On The Mobile Web

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