Moving to the Mobile Web

Tag : mobile phone tool

"Mobile Web used to be WAP ," says Matt Murphy, a partner atKleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, the venture capital firm that hasstarted a US$100 million "iFund" to develop applications for theiPhone. "Now you have a real browser and a real device. The iPhoneis a game-changer."
"From a design experience perspective, it's changing the way peopleview the Web and the value of the mobile Web," says Kelly Goto, thefounder and CEO of San Francisco-based GotoDesign.
Pre-iPhone, says Cameron Moll, principal interaction designer atLDS Church and author of the influential e-book Mobile Web Design , companies typically took one of four approaches to the mobileWeb: 1) do nothing and let mobile users scroll their way aroundsites designed for PC viewing; 2) streamline sites by removingimages and styling, making them more manageable for mobile devices;3) use stylesheets, a tool that allows developers to createdifferent versions of a Web site for different devices; or 4)create an entirely different second site, optimized for mobileusers. Less Maddening Than a Regular Site
Consider the first approach: The iPhone has greatly improved theflashlight-like experience of Web users created by the do-nothingstrategy. Its two-touch, zoomable interface makes it, if notenjoyable, then less than maddening to read a regular site.
"I can read The New York Times on my iPhone, but it involves a lot of pinching and zooming," saysMoll, who prefers to use sites optimized for the iPhone. (If a sitehas a mobile version, the server will automatically detect what type of device is being used andsend the appropriate page.)
Indeed, despite the improved browsing experience the iPhone offers,the do-nothing strategy, as well as approaches two and three, stillhave a fundamental problem: They ignore the issue of context. AsNadav Savio, now a user experience designer at Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) , and mobile usage expert Jared Braiterman, founder of JaredResearch, wrote in a 2007 paper, "we must focus on mobile people,not mobile devices. In other words, we are not merely shrinking insize a Web experience, but creating an entirely new platform forcommunication and interaction." Checking Your Blood Alcohol Level
This requires redesigning or rethinking some of the Web'snavigation and interaction conventions: turning the tabs oftenpresented horizontally across the top of a Web page into a verticalstack, for instance, or increasing the size of buttons or links,which will be tapped by a finger rather than clicked on by acursor.
But the mobile context also lends itself to different types ofcontent. One popular iPhone app provides a perfect example: Blood Alcohol Level -- a calculator that estimates how drunk you are based on whatyou've been drinking, your weight, your gender, etc. It's hard toimagine someone having one too many glasses during a nice dinner athome and thinking, "I'm going to start up my computer so that I cancheck my blood alcohol level on the Web." On the other hand, beingable to look up that information on a mobile device when trying todecide whether or not to drive home makes a lot of sense.
Or another example: Kayak , the popular travel-deal search engine, has an iPhone site. Notonly is it streamlined (no images or styling, etc.) so as to befast-loading, but instead of passing users onto an airline Web siteto make the purchase, as Kayak does if you're on a PC, the mobileversion gives you a phone number. Voice is a much easier way tocomplete your goal of purchasing a ticket if you're on a mobiledevice. Context is king. And more companies are beginning to thinkabout creating iPhone- or mobile-optimized sites. And, of course,those companies that work with designers and utility experts todevelop a context-appropriate, easy-to-use site will be the mostsuccessful. Whrrl's iPhone Version Arrives July 11
"There are a lot of entrepreneurs coming off the sidelines," saysKPCB's Murphy. Since announcing the iFund in early March, the firmhas received more than 2,000 plans, 20 times more than theytypically receive for the mobile space. The first app to receivefunding, Whrrl , is a location-based "social utility" that uses recommendationsfrom your network of friends to suggest, say, a nearby restaurant or fun thing todo. Created by Seattle-based Pellago and already available on othermobile devices, Whrrl's iPhone version will launch when Apple opensits App Store on July 11.