Mobile for UCLWebNet, 3 December 2012

Dan Jackson, Senior Web Architect

The ProblemThe mobile explosion

OCTOBER 2010

37,910

OCTOBER 2011

97,308

OCTOBER 2012

240,620

Once upon a time and not so very long ago, “mobile” meant digital experiences for on-the-go phones. Now we use the word for experiences that are neither on-the-go, nor for phones.

Mobile isn’t especially mobile anymore: it’s on the couch, or in bed…and even the crisp equation “mobile = phone” started to break down with the arrival of tablets of all shapes and sizes.

http://globalmoxie.com/blog/desknots.shtml

Unique combinations of screen resolution + OS,

Aug – Nov 2012?

648

The OptionsWhat can we do?

OPTION #1

Go Native

The primary design principle underlying the Web’s usefulness and growth is universality …it should be accessible from any kind of hardware that can connect to the Internet: stationary or mobile, small screen or large.Tim Berners-Lee, Long Live the Web, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

Not every mobile device will have your app on it, but every mobile device will have a browser.Jason Grigsby, @grigs

OPTION #2

Experiences

Device experiences are a way to classify the troves of connected devices available to consumers today so you can build and design separate and appropriate interfaces for each. A device experience is defined by how a device is most commonly used and the technical capabilities or limitations it possesses.

Luke Wroblewski, https://developers.facebook.com/html5/blog/post/6/

OPTION #3

RWD

RWD is an approach to web design in which a site is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design

The ChallengeChanging the way we work

RWD is a method, not a feature.

The concept of permanently placing content on a web page for a single browsing width or resolution is becoming a thing of the past.

Trent Walton, http://trentwalton.com/2011/07/14/content-choreography/

Like bringing a knife to a gunfight

Andy Clarke, https://speakerdeck.com/malarkey/bringing-a-knife-to-a-gunfight

Next Stepsweb-support@ucl.ac.uk