SXSW: Demystifying the Mobile Web at MobHappy


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I sat in on a panel at SXSW here in Austin yesterday about designing for the mobile Web, and it got me thinking about a few things. Much of the panel, and the Q&A in particular were spent discussing different technical issues — should I use XHTML Basic or XHTML-MP? how do I deal with all the different mobile browsers that manage to render pages differently? and so on.

Sure, these issues are important, but just as important is taking a more holistic view of mobile design and considering how to create services and applications that fit the mobile lifestyle and workstyle, as opposed to just making something that looks nice on a phone. Mobilist Kelly Goto was on the panel and spoke to this, but most people in the audience seemed more concerned with technical than theoretical issues.

I’m not denying that these technical issues aren’t problematic, but their impact can be minimized by sound information design. My impression is that too many people are hung up on this idea of “the mobile Web”, and too hung up on browsers that can render standard Web pages well. There’s room for those, without a doubt, but to lay the blame for the slowly improving state of the mobile on disparate browsers or standards is a cop out.

Understanding mobile design isn’t just understanding WML and XHTML and Openwave browsers vs Access browser. It’s about understanding the types of content and information people want to access on their mobile devices, and how best to arrange and organize it. Adding in the eye candy is easy once you’ve got that down.


Technorati Tags: sxsw, mobile design, gotomobile


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2 Responses to “SXSW: Demystifying the Mobile Web”
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1 C. Enrique Ortiz
Mar 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm

Maybe your audience already have figured out the types of content and information people want, and already have a design in mind, and ARE STUCK in the technical side of things, trying to decide how to best make it happen…

CEO

2 Carlo Longino
Mar 13th, 2006 at 10:29 pm

That’s pretty doubtful but thanks for the insightful comment. When people are saying that it might not be worth it to develop for mobile basically because it’s hard, I doubt they’ve spent too much time thinking about it.