The mobile web optimization guide. Provides an overview of three different strategies to make your websites work across all devices.
Mobile-friendly: The mobile web optimization guide
By Bruce Lawson · 28 Jul, 2010
Published in: media queries, mobile, viewport
Introduction
If I had a Euro for everyone who asks me at conferences how they can “mobilise” their web site, I’d be extraordinarily rich as well as breathtakingly handsome.
It’s easy to see why people wish to make their sites “mobile friendly”; Gartner research suggests that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide. And don’t forget other visits from devices such as games consoles like Nintendo Wii, DSi, web-enabled TVs, in-car browsers and the like.
Many customers are already using mobile devices as their main method of Web access, particularly in emerging markets — the July 2009 Statistical Report on Internet Development in China states that “”the proportion of [people] accessing the Internet by mobile increased enormously from 39.5% in late 2008 to 46% in June 2009″, while the proportion of using desktops and laptops decreased”. That translates to 150 million people. In the developed world, many have a mobile device as their secondary method of accessing the Web while they’re out and about.
It’s a truism that on the Web, there is always someone offering the same service as you are. And if you’re not catering for the mobile user, you can be sure that your competitors are. In the current harsh economic climate, sending customers into the arms of the competition doesn’t succeed as a business strategy.
This article provides an overview of three different strategies to make your websites work across all devices. We’ll call them “mobile-aware” websites, as they’re not specifically for mobile sites, but they will work on mobile, as well as across different alternative browsing devices. These strategies are not mutually exclusive; you can mix and match as your project, budget and sanity allows.
View entire article here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-mobile-web-optimization-guide/