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Did you know that less than 10% of 55 million French subscribers to mobile operator surf the Web via their mobile phones [source: Daily News - France: The Mobile Internet (21/11/2008) ]?

Before packages "mobile web" unlimited does make their appearances (Origami in Orange , Illimythics in SFR , 3G + / EDGE at Bouygues Telecom ), the first explanation given for this was the cost of consultation. This case clearly did not push the website owners (and their providers ...) to make a detailed analysis of expectations and usage of mobile Internet. The consequences on the websites are so far include:

1. Web sites are rarely tested on mobile phones,
2. Web site owners who want mobile access also fund the creation (and maintenance) of a second website called "suitable" for mobile phones.

Two sites today, tomorrow what with the proliferation of media Web Consulting (computers, mobile phones, digital television, interactive terminal ...) and the expected increase in mobile Internet because of the unlimited plans?

Making a searchable website of all media consulting

It is not of course deny the specifics of the mobile web and say that simply implementing the recommendations of international W3C for a website available in all media: yes, the website reads will be "technically accessible" in all media but it will not necessarily suitable for all media and specificities of uses.

Therefore, to respond to this non-dogmatic question of how the mobile web site (and thus build a methodology for analyzing objects adaptable to other existing consultation and future), we must simply begin by noting access and navigating a Web site through a mobile phone (the analysis becomes more relevant if different mobile phones are used because of their differences).

The following are some observations on the use iPhone Web 3G phone the company Apple :

• search: Enter letters slow research because of the small size of the keyboard. Being well referenced and be listed in the first results becomes more important than ever because the user gets tired to search too long (to refine for example) as it does on a computer.
• access time: by using WiFi or 3G download speed of the site is acceptable but becomes problematic when standard GSM access the Web page is too heavy (weight file). The consequence is the disruption of access to the site by the user.
• Accessed on the iPhone, the display of pages is adapted so as not exceed the width of the screen, which results in significant reduction in the size of information and the need to navigate vertically in the web page. A zoom is always so essential to read a portion of the page. So there is loss of the overview and time by reading the user information is actually increased.
• Navigation: the lack of mouse creates a real shortage for users accustomed to the computer mouse. The touch screen of the iPhone's motion-sensitive finger does not fully compensate for the absence.
• , Word , pdf …) ne sont pas systématiquement lisibles sur tous les téléphones portables (par exemple, l'iPhone n'accepte pas à ce jour le plugin Flash sur son navigateur Safari). technological compatibility: The information in proprietary technologies (Flash, Silverlight, Word, pdf ...) are not always readable on all mobile phones (eg, the iPhone does not to this day the Flash plugin for Safari browser ).
• Outside reading: the brightness of a sunny day for example, can significantly interfere with the reading of a webpage with low color contrasts.
• consultation time: memory and information processing battery life is lower on cell phones than on computers, it has an impact on consultation time information. The user needs a targeted information without fireworks display (which consumes the computing time on his cell phone).

These observations uses the mobile web call the implementation of solutions from the design of the website. Here are some suggestions:

• : titre de paragraphe, puis de sous-paragraphe permettant de générer automatiquement une table des matières). search: be well referenced in particular through the explicit titles of your pages (and different on every page) and the structure of your information by heading level (as the structuring of securities of your electronic documents type Word or Open Office: paragraph title, then sub-paragraph to automatically generate a Table of Contents).
• access time: reduce the size of your web pages (file size) by putting your information in formatting style sheets, by optimizing the choice of images (presence necessary? Avoid such texts in images sometimes present in the navigation menus, size down?), in imposing the automatic triggering of multimedia objects (eg a video).
• Consultation: Do not block the display of your information to enable its adaptation to the screen of your mobile phone (preferred style sheets for formatting tables, do not block the text size) identify technically and editorially your areas of information (by div and titles for examples).
• Navigation: give quick links to essential elements of your web page as the menu navigation, the search engine, information content and footer put a link back to the top.
• compatible technological prefer the format (x) html on your web pages with proprietary formats provide an alternative to proprietary formats when used as a verbatim transcript of a video.
• Outside reading: optimizing color contrast, especially on essential information and Web links, to allow consultation web external environment (brightness greater than inside).
• consultation time: information is needed quickly focused and manageable by the mobile device, which invites us to rationalize the effects of requiring unnecessary additional computation time (eg a multimedia navigation created for the fun but useless for the Internet by compared to conventional navigation).

Apply the previous proposals returned to design your website in compliance with international recommendations following the W3C :

• the accessibility guidelines for Web content: WCAG 2.0
• recommendations for portability to mobile Web sites: Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

From the moment your website meets these two recommendations (number of identical rules: Read the document Relationship Between MWBP and WCAG ), your website is "technically accessible" on the supports fixed and mobile Web consultation (it is interoperable ). This is a first step that now seems indispensable to all Web sites saw the expected increase in consulting the Web via mobile phones.

Improving the relevance of consulting a website by media consulting

It remains to ask the question of relevance for the user to access all the information on your Web site through such a smaller screen, no mouse and in the context of mobility.

The answer depends primarily on the nature of the content of your website. However, even in cases where in fact some content is not relevant to a mobile phone, it should not be given technical answer as to develop a second website. The phone with iPhone applications offers a solution to the need to display some of the content of a website and is showing it is possible to select areas of information from the same website. Also, if your website is displayed with style sheets, you can even change its display to suit your mobile phone.

By doing this if your choice is to provide users with mobile access to your specific website, you do not develop a second site: you are adapting to support consultation, with further development limited. This ensures the existence of a unique source of information and preparing your website to Web Consulting developments that will multiply in the future. But remember: develop your website in compliance with international recommendations of the W3C .

Note: if you want to simulate the behavior of your website on a mobile phone, you can use the online application dotMobi dotMobi Emulator .

Example Mobile Web Consulting: blind and the vocal

As for browsing the Web from a computer, blind people use a software called "screen reader" on their mobile phone. This software vocalizes the navigation menu on the phone and the content displayed and allows the blind person to control his consultation with various features.

To date, there are two screen readers to vocalize some mobile phones available on the market:

• ( liste des téléphones portables compatibles ). Mobile Speak of the company Code Factory ( list of compatible phones ).
• Talks of the company Nuance .

( Smartphones , Pocket PC ) et BlackBerry (nom du lecteur d'écran : Orator ). Note: Mobile Speak screen reader may be used on most operating systems equip mobile phones: Symbian, Windows Mobile (Smartphone, Pocket PC) and BlackBerry (name screen reader: Orator). et que vous pouvez tester en ligne à Acapela Text-to-Speech Interactive Demo . It enjoys the voice synthesis text-to-speech created by Acapela Group and you can test online Acapela Text-to-Speech Interactive Demo .

The demonstration of using a screen reader on a Web site clearly demonstrates the importance of developing your website in compliance with international recommendations of the W3C . If you needed another reason to do so ...

Innovation: browse differently on the Web with your mobile

If screen readers can record a voice tag for a website via a mobile phone, other speech recognition applications allow you to control your web browsing.

Here below a video in English on the Google Mobile for iPhone. We told you it's time to get interested in the evolution of mobile Web ...