Thursday, September 24, 2009

Ten reasons web developers should be considering developing for the mobile web

Excuse the roughness of these notes but I thought I'd post this list I had hanging around.

1. More people using it
  • More than before
  • And they're using it for longer than before
  • Globally more people access the internet from a 'mobile' than a 'PC'.

2. Bigger screens
  • Have made mobile browsers easier to use
  • Enable a better experience by allowing the viewing of more than just simple text.

3. Better browsers
  • Can render as well as some desktop browsers
  • Even with flash support
  • Silverlight mobile coming (apparently)

4. Can get 95% of devices with a single output format
  • XHTML-MP

5. Cheaper & easier to do than probably think
  • It's not as complex as having to develop WAP (anymore)
  • Tooling makes it easier

6. Transcoders aren't good enough as don't consider context

  • You can create a better experience if you target specifically to the mobile environment, rather than just rely on a machine trying to guess at what would be best.

7. Wide variety of tools to help you

8. Big companies thing it's important
  • Eric Schmidt (Google) - "Mobile devices are the most important technology of all."
  • Eric Schmidt (Google) - "Google's future depends on the next internet, on cellphones."

9. Provide new ways of interacting with existing users and opportunity to reach new ones
  • New ways to build community
  • New ways to build loyalty
  • New ways to make money

10. You already do (or should) variations of your site(s) (for accessibility)
  • WCAG
  • Section508

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