Print

Send

Share

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

Before the package "Mobile Web" will make their appearances Unlimited (Origami in Orange , Illimythics in SFR , 3G + / EDGE at Bouygues Telecom ), the first explanation given to this situation was the cost of consultation. This case clearly did not push the website owners (and their providers ...) to make a detailed analysis of needs and uses of mobile Internet users. The consequences on the websites are to date 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 "adapted" to mobile phones.

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

Make a website available on all media consulting

This is not of course deny the specifics of the mobile web and to say that simply to implement the recommendations of the international W3C Web site for a searchable on all media: Yes, the website reads will be "technically accessible" on all media but will not necessarily be suitable for all substrates and specificities of uses.

Therefore, to respond to this non-dogmatic question of how the mobile web site (and thus build an analysis methodology adaptable to other objects existing consultation and future), you must simply start by looking at access and navigation on a website via a mobile phone (the analysis becomes more relevant if different mobile phones are used because of their differences).

Here below some comments on the use of Web telephone company iPhone 3G Apple :

• search: enter the 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 will be tired to search too long (to refine, for example) as it does on a computer.
• access time: in use WiFi or 3G, the download speed of the site is acceptable but becomes problematic when standard GSM access the Web page is too big (file size). The consequence is the disruption of access to the site by the user.
• Accessed on the iPhone, the display of pages is designed to 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. Zoom is then systematically required to view a portion of the page. So there is loss of overview and reading time by the user information is actually increased.
• Navigation: no mouse creates a true shortage for users familiar with the computer mouse. The touch screen of the iPhone sensitive to finger movement does not fully compensate this lack.
• , 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 routinely play on all mobile phones (eg, the iPhone does not to date the Flash plug on its Safari browser ).
• playing outdoors: the brightness of a sunny example can significantly interfere with the reading of a Web page with low color contrast.
• consulting time: the memory of information processing and battery life is lower on mobile phones than computers, this has an impact on consultation time information. The user needs a targeted information without artifice display (which consumes computing time on his mobile phone).

These observations of practice called the mobile web development 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 explicit titles of your web pages (and different on every page) and the structuring of your information by heading level (as in debt structuring your electronic documents such as Word or Open Office: as a paragraph, and 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, optimizing the selection of your pictures (presence necessary? Avoid such texts in pictures sometimes present in the navigation menus; size decrease?), by not 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 (the div and titles for example).
• navigation: links give quick access to the essential elements of your web page as the menu navigation, the search engine, information content and footer put a link back to the top.
• technological compatibility: choose the format (x) html on your web pages to proprietary formats, give an alternative to proprietary formats when used as a text transcript for a video.
• playing outdoors: optimize color contrasts, particularly in information and web links essential to enable a web consultation external environment (brightness greater than inside).
• consulting time: you have targeted information quickly and treatable by the mobile device, which calls for streamlining unnecessary effects requiring additional computing time (for example, created a multimedia browsing for fun but useless for the user by compared to conventional navigation).

Implement the above proposals is up to design your website in accordance with international recommendations following the W3C :

• the recommendations of the Web Content Accessibility: WCAG 2.0
• recommendations for the portability of Web sites to mobile phones: Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

From the moment that your website meets these two recommendations (number of identical rules: read the Relationship Between MWBP and WCAG ), your website is "technically accessible" on the supports fixed and mobile Web consultation (it is interoperable ). This is a step which now seems essential for all websites saw the expected increase Consultation Web via mobile phones.

Improve the relevance of visiting a website for the media advisory

It remains to ask the question of relevance for the user to access all the information your web site via such a smaller screen, no mouse and in a 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, you must avoid giving an answer technical development of a second website. The phone with iPhone applications offers a solution to the need to display some content to a website and shows that it is possible to select areas of information from the same website. Also, if your website is displayed through style sheets, you can even change its display to suit your mobile phone.

By doing this if your choice is to offer users mobile access to your specific website, you do not develop a second site, you adapt it to support consultation through a limited development effort. So make sure that there is a single source of information and preparing your site to changes in Web consultation that will multiply in the future. But remember: develop your Web site in accordance 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: the blind and voice

Like to surf a website from a computer, blind people use software called "screen reader" on their mobile phone. This software vocalise the navigation menu of the phone and the content displayed and allows the blind person to control his consultation with various features.

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

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

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

The demonstration of using a screen reader on a website shows an obvious way the importance of developing your website in accordance with international recommendations of the W3C . If you needed another reason to do so ...

Innovation: navigate differently on the Web with your mobile

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

The following is a video in English on the Google Mobile for the iPhone. When you are told it is time to get interested in the developments of the mobile web ...