This morning I was browsing some questions on LinkedIn and provided an answer that I thought I should share here.

Paul Madden , a digital marketing manager from Mitchells & Butlers in the U.K. had posed a question about the best way to adapt a site for the mobile web. (Paul’s blog)

I am working in the Hospitality Industry and planning some website development – new build sites and some refreshes. As part of this work, I am investigating designing for mobile and understanding consumer needs and online activity whilst on the move.

After some blog/book reading and podcast listening, it seems that designing for mobile might fall into 4 broad areas (Cameron Moll advocates this):

1. Websites that do nothing different for mobile

2. Websites that reduce the weight of content and download impact for mobile devices

3. CSS based design that identifies the browser and provides a mobile experience

4. Separately designed mobile websites

Could I ask for your thoughts and comments on this. Perhaps you have followed one of the methods above and would be happy to share learning with the network or maybe you have an opinion from a mobile consumer point of view.
Paul

I want to share my answer with my blog readers. Many of you know that I have always pushed the idea that mobile is not just  making the Internet smaller. All mobile services should take advantage of the “mobility” aspect of the medium, and provide the best experience to the user given their “mobile” status.  It’s not about sending an email via sms, or viewing an Internet web site on a smaller screen.

The following is my response to paul’s question:

Paul,

When the web first started getting popular and companies were building web sites, most companies simply took their brochure and made a web site from it. They did not take into consideration the medium, and how the differences could be used to make a much more powerful experience. It wasn’t long before we started adding interactivity such as forms and database driven content. Now we take all this for granted. Incredibly powerful web applications have been built that render the same HTML that was being used in 1995.

The same appears to be happening on the mobile side. If you have to ask whether you should be creating a different web site for mobile, then you are not taking advantage of what mobile is all about.
Mobile is a “tell me what I want to know, when I want to know it, where ever I want to know it” medium. I highly doubt that your existing web site is targeted this way.

Before you tackle the issue of whether you should detect the phone and resize images and styles, you should be looking at what content you will be delivering.

For example, you say you are in the hospitality industry. Clearly this is a great industry for mobile. If Let’s say you are a hotel. As a consumer who is accessing your site on my phone, I would want to be presented with a simple page that let’s me choose what I want to do. Present me with some summary content, and let me choose to view a tour, or make a reservation, get directions from where I am, etc..

There is no way you can adapt your existing site via CSS, or transcoding to do this.

You also want to tailor the content to the consumer’s phone. Let’s say I am accesing your site on my iPhone. Then present me with an option to view a video tour! If I am on a phone that does not support video, then don’t waste my bandwidth giving me that option. Show me some simple pictures or offer to send me an MMS slide show. If my screen is less than 200 pixels, then show me the appropriate photo, or automatically resize. Give me a clickable phone number. Be mobile specific.

Option 4 is the only option as far as I am concerned. Even Google with it’s simple interface designed a mobile specific interface. The data is the same, just the interface is different. I access on my iPHone and I get their new sleek iPhone app. On my Blackberry I get a light version of the search. When I search, it assumes I am mobile and puts contact info and directions up front.

Assuming you go with creating a mobile specific web site, then you have to tackle the issue of detection and content delivery. Depending on your needs, this can be done using WURFL, or through commercial products out there designed for this purpose. Start off simple. Find the lowest common denominator and build up from there.

Once the site is built, install a mobile specific analytics package. FInd out what percentage of visitors have certain capabilities. If you find that 50% of your visitors support video, then you can put up a nice video tour. If 2% have video, then you don’t bother.

Think mobile, not mini web site.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 11:21 am and is filed under General, Mobile Web, Mobile Web Analytics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.