Mobile Portland is a group that meets every 4th Monday to discuss mobile development. This week’s topic: A Standards-Based Approach to Mobile Web Development.

Introductions - always impressed with how many mobile developers in the area

Upcoming Activities

WebVisions

  • Android Meetup
    • 2nd Monday
    • Lucky Lab
  • iPhone Meetup
    • 2nd Tuesday
    • Green Dragon
  • Innotech
    • innotechconference.com/pdx
    • April 22-23
    • ~$65
  • Bar Camp
    • barcamp.org/BarCampPortland
    • May 1-2
  • WebVisions
    • May 20-22
    • $195

Presentation

Introduction

  • Gail Rahn Frederick (gail.frederick@gmail.com)
  • Mobile Designer
Why study mobile web development
  • The Mobile Web is Totally New
  • The Mobile User is Totally New
  • The Mobile Browser is Totally New
Mobile Web is Totally New
  • New Markup and Scripting Languages
  • Partil implemenations of standards is OK
  • Optimize for Network Bandwidth
  • The Mobile Web is the Wild, Wild West
    • Transcoding proxies reformat your markup
    • Can totally mess up your markup
    • Defensive programming is essential
Mobile User is Totally New
  • 3 groups
    • Repetitve Now (same data over and over)
    • Bored Now (have time on their hands - casual)
    • Urgent Now (Business locations, directions to airport, etc. - location based)
Mobile Browser is Totally New
  • Must be tested on phone
Mobile Web Usage
  • Mobile Phones have been adopted faster than any other electronic device (and are in broader use)
  • Average session length is 3 minutes (vs. 10-15 minutes on the desktop)
  • 12+ browser mfrs (vs. 2-4 on the desktop)
  • Browser bugs are frequent and permanent
  • Huge variety in screen resolution
Design
  • Prioritize and organize features
  • Promote “snackability”
  • Be consistent with desktop version of web
  • Use device database to adapt to device (serve best markup)
    • WURFL, Device Atlas
  • iPhone-only sites reach only 10%-15% of mobile market
Gail’s Classes at PCC
  • Mobile Web Development
  • Advanced Mobile Web Development (for smart devices)

Tags: