It seems as though this design has received a little attention. A css gallery featured it back in May, CSS Anarchy. The feature was also picked up by a Czech online gallery CSS Galerie.
Heh, I guess I should check my web stats a little more often!
This was by far the most informative and useful panel I have attended so far this year at SXSWi. There is no possible way for me to go through all of what was covered as I am not a mobile guru. The basics discussed are that if you design your site to be semantically correct, using W3 standards and proper CSS markup, then you are about 90% of the way to having a mobile device friendly site.
Here are my notes from the panel presented by Brian Fling:
do not design for smart phones or pda’s
- 50 web browsers
- 500 different devices
Directional orientation.
think in vertical terms.mobile web standards
- xhtml-mp
- a subset of xhtml basic
- part of wap 2.0
- virtually indistinguishable between the two
- predominant language of mobile web
- dreamweaver have mobile web extension
- default industry supported format
Wireless CSS
- supports basic css attributes
- keep css simple
- use document styles versus stylesheets
- as long as code and styles are simple, then you will do fine on most browsers.
One Web
the idea that there should use the same information for delivering content to the web.
Getting Started
- correct encoding and doctype
- use well formed code
- avoid tables for layout
- place the navigation in the content area of the site
- use access key as part of the primary navigation of the site( no more than 10 links)
- Use ordered lists rather than unordered lists for nav layout(will magically show magic keys)
- link phone numbers <a href="tel:=+1223883">number</a>
- input mask for forms and keep forms to a minimum
Mobile publishing
- SSR
- reformatting
- stylesheets
- mobile specific site
Focus on Five
- Nokia
- razr
- trio
- lg
force the user to manually
- detect the mobile device and redirect
- a SMS query that returns
simple device detection
advanced device detection - deliver the best possible code to a specific device.
-costly
start simple with a simple mobile site
-mobile stylesheetDesktop Testing
- Opera has some tools for testing
- Firefox has User agent switcher
- emulators
- device testing
- usability testing
Resources
How do we design for class? How do we design for people that are of a different class than yourself? The answer is user research.
How is the audience defined? Design for two audiences: your core audience and those who might become potential core users.
Websites that design for lower class demographics might rely more on statistical data than higher class that might ignore it. Higher class design might use analytics. There is real value in relying on your instinct.
Do you move towards your audience or does your audience move closer to you?
The public is more familiar with poor design. Is there an inherent goodness to bad design? Is a lower rate design more appropriate for the right audience?
Well, my personal belief is that if a design is simplified in a way that makes it easy to use, all classes ought to be comfortable with it. does it really have to be that a beautifully designed site automatically put off those of lower social standing? It design really bad if it is ugly and still usable? One thing that can be apprehensive for some if it looks too rich? Yes, I have heard that remark from some. Where does the line cross?
The question is about how to deliver the content in a progressive manner. Has education come out of the twentieth century?
I brought up how closed minded institutions can be when it comes to web support and coding for different platforms. The answer was that many schools are simply struggling to add a video projector to a room, let alone deploy and integrate various systems. Schools always have to take into mind the three S’s: Security, Support, Stability.
Schools are going to have to begin integrating curriculum with their technology departments as they move forwrard. Progression is needed.
Another major issue is that many instructors are being expected to teach using new systems that they have no experience using. How can instructors be expected to use new technology when they are not comfortable using it? The paradigm shift begins when those who are familiar begin to enter the workforce as instructors.
The discussion about how we are opening our day to day lives to the world via web apps and blogs. Data collection was discussed as an interesting point because people are giving up more and more data to the world.
Our data and privacy is a large driver to the products on the web. Giving people the ability to disclose their daily happenings to the world is a strong business model.
Where is the line drawn? What is acceptable when it comes to data mining?
Are private networks like Myspace going to be the next trend? What about close networks were you actually have to know someone?