28th
Mobile Web Design book review
Drawing on Cameron Moll’s experiences developing for mobile devices, Mobile Web Design aims to unite mobile web design with web standards. It features facts, statistics and practical advice, and even includes sections on testing and promoting your mobile site.
Split across 9 chapters (just over 100 pages), Mobile Web Design is a concise guide to all the major issues facing developers and designers today. Statistics are included covering the penetration and growth of mobile devices, presumably targeted at anyone trying to sell the idea of mobile web development to their boss or clients. It also contains discussions of cultural topics beyond practical advice. I was particularly intrigued by the section on the concept of mobile itself:
Mobile, the user; not mobile, the device. Mobile is more than just being wireless.
Moll is very clear about the limitations of the mobile web, covering carrier issues and standards, and explains the unique opportunities presented by this technology. Getting developers to think along the right lines is discussed particularly well in the “PC nearsightedness” section, and these arguments are related to current issues including the iPhone and even the term “cell phone” itself.
In the chapter “Four Methods, Revisited”, Moll expands on his series of articles entitled Mobile Web Design: The Series. The four approaches discussed are: do nothing, reduce images and styling, use handheld style sheets and create mobile-optimised content. Each approach is illustrated with real world examples along with the advantages and disadvantages.
Our web applications (at Helicoid) use the fourth approach, where we create separate sites for mobile devices. We’ve learned the hard way about the issues and best practices relating to this. We’d have saved a lot of time had we been able to read Mobile Web Design beforehand, and our experiences closely follow Moll’s advice.
