The Mobile Web: keep up if you can!

sharon

Revise

"Demand for the mobile web exists not because it complements existing means of access, but rather because it replaces them." [Opera's chief executive Jon S. von Tetzchner, Oct 2008].

"Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions." [Jakob Nielsen, Feb 2009]

In 2008, many countries experienced triple-digit or even quadruple-digit usage growth. In Britain, those who access the Internet via mobile phones are younger than PC-based Internet users with around a quarter aged between 15 and 24, compared to 16% of all PC Internet users. Almost 7.5 million Britons now access the web through their phone.

Many major Web 2.0 sites have established "m" microsites (eg Flickr, Facebook, Google, BBC, the list goes on).

- Are HE institutions being left behind?
- Do you test your institutional website(s) for mobile compatibility?
- When do you give up trying to accommodate all devices?
- Should we be building microsites/mobile specific sites?
- Are we offering the right online services in a mobile accessible format?
- Should we be embracing other mobile technologies: SMS, MMS, bluetooth?

Idea # 27content, mobile internet web phone

Comments

j.speller 1 year ago

I'd be very interested in this - been banging on about it for years at my place but it keeps getting sidelined. m.mit.edu is a first class example of how to do it - best on iPhone of course :-).

helen.newnham 1 year ago

I'm very interested too. Tentatively starting to put together a couple of pages exclusively for mobile devices.

As well as the mti example, http://www.utexas.mobi is another US uni example. Not as visually pleasing as mti's site, but it's interesting to compare the two for content.

s.lever 1 year ago

http://mobile.utexas.edu/
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/hsl/mobile/mobilecircinfo.html
http://uc2go.mobi/
http://mobile.usablenet.com/mt/illinois.edu/mobile/?un_jtt_redirect

Are all interesting to view you will see a lot of similarity, something worth checking out is how maps are handled and then think about how you might want to represent your campus.

This is no different than building any website you have to make it comply with standards (mobile standards), usable and accessible but your main hurdle is getting resources to go ahead!

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