Mobile Web Strategies Blog

I have been very busy end of the year with a lot of projects including a thesis for Information Business degree at Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. Besides all the ups and downs of study, family and work I have decided that I will commit myself to write at least 1000 words per day in order to have all my projects including the blog taken care. Let’s see how it comes up. The topic of the day is the title of the post that is: What to consider when designing or purchasing a mobile site or app? 1. Who will use your site or app? Without knowing who is your target group and knowing basic things about them you won’t go too far.  That is what in UX (User Experience) term means building PERSONAS. Personas should be real users with their complete profiles. Ok, now you might think – you lost me in this one, how do I do that? Well, that is easy. You have the mobile app and site idea.  Who is the first person that comes to your mind that you see using your app...

Most of IT companies don’t see UX (User Experience) should be at the heart of everything they do which leads to their inability to present and sell UX as the starting point of any project. UX in most case is sold as an “extra” service while they should be seen as the starting point of any IT business strategy. UX is everything - it starts with the customers, go deeper to their customers and it should end with them in mind! What UX really is? UX is a business and digital field in itself. The misconception here is that most people think of UX as just usability. Usability though is simply how easy to use and simple the website functionalities are to the end user. For usability we have plenty of best practices already in place and even standardized. Bear  in mind that usability is only part of UX! UX is a continuous work that starts by what customers want to accomplish with their site, and not how they want the site to be , unless they are the ultimate end user of the site...

HTML5 MISCONCEPTION Nowadays any new browser capability or web application technique found across the web is labeled as HTML5 and that is not true. Michael Mahemoff said that HTML5 has become a brand that represents a new type of web application rather than the specification itself. In order to learn HTML5 is very important to understand what really HTML5 is. It is common nowadays hear CSS transitions, web sockets, geolocation, SVG, CSS @font-face all mentioned under the HTML5 banner and label all under HTML5 "brand".  In the specification none of those mentioned are found for the simple reason that they either belong to the CSS3 specification or other API specification within the WWW Consortium. Websites are and will be built with a combination of HTML5, next-generation APIs, JavaScript and CSS3, which means that as a designer or developer the difference between those technologies must be clear and how they fit together should be understood. What is really HTML5? ...

Mobile Friendly Contact Forms The way to go for mobile friendly contact forms is the touch-friendly CSS styling in order to make the buttons, controls and inputs with touchscreen experience. 1. Large touch target areas will definitely improve the form input fields 2. Other forms of input can also greatly benefit from input controls with CSS styling 3. HTML5 input types should be use to trigger keyboard events to aid the user on having  a great experience. Depending on the input type selected mobile browsers have different on-screen keyboards for different froms of data that should be taken into account. Just by including in the label the type="" and inside the quotes tel for phone numbers, url for websites, time for time, date for the date, e-mail for email we can make the keyboard behave accordingly with is very useful. I constantly came across mobile websites that make me look for the @ when I have to enter my e-mail, or any other type of data that is n...

In my earlier post about the differences between Responsive Design and Mobile Web App I have talked about two of the three approaches for mobile web app: The second that is Responsive Design and the third that is Mobile-Specific , but what about the first? Here is the first approach that is not recommended but depending on the website, its design, its content and its purpose, it might be ok. 1. "Do nothing" approach This approach is the one which desktop content is served to the mobile device unaltered. This is unfortunately the most used approach for mobile around the world, however it is changing fast. The good side of this approach is that it is less work to do and no need to maintain, however it is not an optimal choice regarding user experience and nurturing your customers. This approach is good for lightweight pages that have flexible content and that is arrange in such a way that it is not totally zoomed out and is easy to read when tabbing twice the text. ...

This blog is also available on mobile form, which means that you can read and comment from your phone as well. What would be a blog that speaks about mobile web development that is not available on mobile?

Why the mobile web vs. apps debate is a false dichotomy The arguments presented in favor of the mobile web over mobile native represent a false dichotomy. Simply put, there is no universal truth in the mobile web vs. mobile native debate, and no “one right way,” despite what the pontificators would have you believe. The argument in favor of mobile web goes like this: The web is open, ubiquitous, requires no special software, is globally searchable and algorithmically discoverable. As such, it is agile, extensible and readily manageable. Plus, there are lots of proven models for development, discovery, distribution and monetization. And, of course, mobile web development offers a higher degree of symmetry to PC browser-based web development than mobile native app development does. The argument is favor of mobile native goes like this: There are over 400 million iOS devices and over 500 million Android devices, representing almost 1 billion devices worldw...

WHAT's IS A MOBILE WEB APP? A mobile web app is a mobile application that combines the versatility of the web with the functionality of touch-enabled devices. Mobile Web Apps should be built with HTML5 and take advantage of the best of this cutting edge technology — providing an attractive alternative to the app stores, while still providing users with the rich look and feel of native applications. Because mobile web apps are web-based, they are compatible with both iPhone and Android smartphones — making it easy to deliver your content to a large mobile audience. Since mobile web apps don't need to be listed in the Apple App Store or Google’s Android Marketplace, you can distribute your mobile web app on your own terms without complex and lengthy approvals. Just quick and easy widespread distribution through multiple channels including: a mobile link (URL), text (SMS), barcodes (QR), social media networks, email, and more. Mobile web apps can include existi...

Smartphone is a mobile device in which people does not have time or are in the environment that is suitable to input anything. This means the more you facilitate your customers to do what he or she has to do on your mobile Web site the more they will come for more, stick with your company and even recommend your company for the easy of use even when mobile. What is the user experience you provide for your customers on your mobile Web? If you use responsive design, what do you consider when building the Smarthphone version? Do you ask your customers what they need and what when using the Smartphone or you do what you think is best without considering the users who will be using the site? without considering their environment conditions and what they really would like to use your site for when mobile?

RESPONSIVE DESIGN is a way to make the same desktop website change through different CSS stylesheets. The HTML site is nothing more than text wrapped within tags that has no style whatsoever.  When we include some meta tags within the head in the HTML document that limits the range of sizes recognized for tablets and for smartphone applying for both different CSS stylesheet built for specific for tables and for smartphones.  Responsive Design is of the 3 Mobile Web Development strategies that is appropriated for semantic markup that use stylesheets and script to define appearance such as images, layout, etc. It is not appropriated for all websites, products or companies. MOBILE WEB APP or MOBILE-SPECIFC approach is the one which mobile-specific content is built and delivered to mobile devices (both tablets and/or smartphones). This approach is the third of the 3 mobile content approaches and usually involves some kind of server-side detection and redirection. Mobile-specifi...

Go mobile means serve a mobile user who has different needs using mobile devices than the user accessing a Web page from the desktop. According to Cisco: “By the end of 2013, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2017 there will be nearly 1.4 mobile devices per capita. There will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices in 2017, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules-exceeding the world's population at that time (7.6 billion).” http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html Why companies should go mobile? 1. There are already too much mobile devices out there to you ignore its existence; 2. Your competitor already are opening their eyes for the opportunity to server their customers though mobile devices; and 3. Unless you want to lose your customers for lack of mobility - you must go Mobile.