Mobile Web

Developer’s Guide
Part I: Creating Simple Mobile Sites for Common Handsets
DotMobi Mobile Web Developer Guide

Part I: Creating Simple Mobile Sites

Copyright © 2007 mTLD. All rights reserved. The contents of this document constitute valuable

proprietary and confidential property of mTLD and are provided subject to the user fully

acknowledging all title, intellectual and proprietary rights vest wholly in mTLD and to specific

obligations of confidentiality and other obligations as may be set forth in one or more binding

legal agreements.

Any use of this material is limited strictly to the uses specifically authorized in the applicable

license agreement(s) pursuant to which such material has been furnished. Any use or disclosure

of all or any part of this material not specifically authorized in writing by mTLD is strictly

prohibited.

Published by mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD), Ltd. 11 Exchange Place, IFSC, Dublin 1, Ireland

Contributing Authors: Ronan Cremin, Jo Rabin, Brian Fling, D. Keith Robinson

Printing History: March 2007: First Edition

dotMobi and the dotMobi logo are trademarks of mTLD. All other company, brand, and product

names are referenced for identification purposes only and may be trademarks that are the sole

property of their respective owners.

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this Guide, dotMobi accepts no

responsibility for any inaccuracies contained in the text. The information in this Guide is provided

‘as is’, without any warranty of any kind. In no event shall dotMobi be liable for any

consequential, incidental or direct damages suffered by any party in connection with the use of

the information in this Guide. The information in this Guide does not constitute legal or

commercial advice.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 3

1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 5

THE BENEFITS OF THE MOBILE WEB ..................................................................................................... 6

DOTMOBI .............................................................................................................................................. 7

2. MOBILE WEB STRATEGY ............................................................................................................. 9

BALANCING GOALS AND CONSTRAINTS .............................................................................................. 10

USER-CENTERED DESIGN .................................................................................................................... 11
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE ...................................................................................................................... 12

3. MOBILE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE............................................................................. 13

KEEP IT SIMPLE ................................................................................................................................... 14

CLICK STREAMS .................................................................................................................................. 17
MOBILE SERVICE PROVIDERS .............................................................................................................. 17
PROTOTYPING ...................................................................................................................................... 18

4. MOBILE WEB DESIGN .................................................................................................................. 21

DESIGNING FOR DIFFERENT SCREEN SIZES .......................................................................................... 21

DESIGNING FOR THE RIGHT DEVICE .................................................................................................... 23
MOBILE WEB NAVIGATION PARADIGMS ............................................................................................. 24
LAYOUT & INFORMATION DESIGN ...................................................................................................... 27

5. MOBILE WEB STANDARDS ......................................................................................................... 29

WIRELESS APPLICATION PROTOCOL (WAP) ....................................................................................... 30

XHTML MOBILE PROFILE / XHTML BASIC ....................................................................................... 32
WIRELESS CSS .................................................................................................................................... 33
THE BENEFIT OF WEB STANDARDS TECHNIQUES ................................................................................ 34
W3C INITIATIVES ................................................................................................................................ 35
DOTMOBI REGISTRANT RULES ............................................................................................................ 37

6. GETTING STARTED WITH XHTML .......................................................................................... 40

ALWAYS USE THE CORRECT ENCODING & DOCTYPE .......................................................................... 40

ALWAYS USE WELL-FORMED CODE .................................................................................................... 41
ALWAYS AVOID USING TABLES FOR LAYOUT ..................................................................................... 42
PLACE NAVIGATION IN THE CONTENT BODY....................................................................................... 43
USE ACCESSKEYS IN THE PRIMARY NAVIGATION ................................................................................ 43
USE ORDERED LISTS FOR NAVIGATION ............................................................................................... 44
LINKING PHONE NUMBERS .................................................................................................................. 45
DEALING WITH FORMS CAN BE TRICKY ............................................................................................... 45
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 4

7. RECOMMENDATIONS & BEST PRACTICES ........................................................................... 49

PAGE INFORMATION ............................................................................................................................ 50

STRUCTURE ......................................................................................................................................... 55
CONTENT ............................................................................................................................................. 57
IMAGES ................................................................................................................................................ 60
OTHER BEST PRACTICES ..................................................................................................................... 62

8. MOBILE PUBLISHING................................................................................................................... 64

SITE NAMING....................................................................................................................................... 66
CONFIGURING SERVER MIME TYPES .................................................................................................. 68
SITE TESTING ...................................................................................................................................... 69

9. GOING FURTHER WITH ADAPTATION................................................................................... 74

USER CHOICE ...................................................................................................................................... 75

WHAT IS ADAPTATION? ...................................................................................................................... 76
DEVICE DETECTION AND CHARACTERISTICS ....................................................................................... 79
ADAPTATION STRATEGIES ................................................................................................................... 80
REMEMBER .......................................................................................................................................... 83

APPENDIX A: CREATING A MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITE USING ONLY STYLESHEETS .... 84

WARNING ............................................................................................................................................ 85

GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................................................... 87
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 5

1. Introduction
The Web has revolutionized how we interact with and publish information, but

up to now it has only been accessible to people with desktop devices. Web-

enabled mobile phones now extend the expected global reach of the Web to three

times that of today, touching one-third of the population 1 of the planet.

The goal of this guide is to provide developers and site owners with enough

knowledge to get started with the creation of Web content for mobile users. It

covers the benefits of publishing for mobile users, how mobile delivery differs

from desktop delivery and how to design for the mobile context.

Before now, Web publishing for mobile users has been something of a mystery,

partly because of a lack of information. This guide forms part of dotMobi’s efforts

to change this by providing authoritative and comprehensive guides, best

practices and methods and other material describing how to publish for mobile.

The guide aims to provide an introduction for those not familiar with the Mobile

Web. It contains techniques and information required to create a basic site that

will work well on the majority of phones. It is not an encyclopedia of past and

present technologies and techniques, but provides a place to start. Although

using a .mobi domain is recommended as a clear way to indicate to the user that

a site is mobile-friendly, the advice presented here applies to any mobile site.

1
T-Mobile, Credit Suisse First Boston and Pyramid Research report
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 6

After reading this guide, you should have a firm understanding of the basics of

mobile presentation: what to do and what not to do. This should help you

determine how your organization can mobilize its online strategy.

Part II of this guide will address more advanced topics such as adaptation of

content to suit the capabilities of more advanced devices and provide a better

experience for their users. We provide an introduction to this in Chapter 9. Going

further with Adaptation.

The Benefits of the Mobile Web

Some of the more important benefits of the Mobile Web are:

• It can enable access to information, any time and anywhere there is cell

phone coverage. By freeing information from the restrictions of a desk or

search for a nearby WiFi hotspot, people can quickly retrieve and

exchange information.

• It provides vast connectivity. One-third of humankind currently has access

to the Internet through a mobile device. This number is twice as many as

the number of Internet-connected personal computers (PCs). By 2010, it’s

expected that half of the planet’s population will have access to the

Internet through a mobile device. 2

• It enables services to take advantage of mobile device capabilities such as

clicking on a phone number to call it or add it to the device address book.

2
Informa Telecoms & Media (2007)
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 7

• It can provide location-sensitive content. Location technologies can enable

location-sensitive information be provided to a user. This can reduce the

steps required for the user to reach useful content, and so makes it

accessible with the least amount of effort

DotMobi

mTLD Mobile Top Level Domain, Limited (usually known as dotMobi) is the

ICANN-appointed global registry for the .mobi domain. Backed by 13 leading

mobile and Internet organizations, .mobi addresses the need for seamless access

to the Internet from mobile phones.

DotMobi is the first and only top level domain dedicated to users who access the

Internet through their mobile phones. With four mobile phones purchased for

every one personal computer, there’s a world of people for whom the mobile

phone is the main access point to the Internet. And those users can trust that a

Web site is compatible with their mobile phone when that site’s address ends in

.mobi.

In a fast-growing mobile society, businesses, organizations and individuals need

to reach and interact with their customers while mobile. A .mobi address allows

them to bypass the constraints of geography, mobile service providers and

handsets to reach their audience.

For content providers, it opens a new and more profitable revenue stream,

without having to rely on mobile service provider portals.

Conversely, for mobile service providers, the .mobi domain provides them with

the ability to take advantage of profitable data services while ensuring a good
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 8

user experience, and in return, gain customer loyalty. This is because the

dotMobi company ensures a predictable, consistent experience on a mobile

phone by encouraging site owners to use dotMobi Switch On! TM Guides, based

on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations.

DotMobi, the company behind the .mobi domain, is backed by 13 of the world’s

leading mobile and Internet players – the same companies who have delivered

the promise of today’s information society: Ericsson, GSM Association, Google,

Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse,

Telefónica Móviles, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), T-Mobile and Vodafone.

References and Resources

• List of interesting dotMobi sites: http://showcase.mtld.mobi/

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 9

2. Mobile Web Strategy

When considering a Web presence targeted at mobile users, the first question to

ask is, “Why should it be mobile?” Simply having the content and the ability to

mobilize it is not on its own, enough – you should focus on providing content that

is directly useful to a mobile user and takes account of the differences in device

characteristics.

Some recent mobile handsets can render existing PC-focused web sites.

However, the user experience is often sub-optimal – the most relevant content for

the mobile user may be difficult to access. Some particularly rich sites may not

render at all on the mobile and viewing the site may be slow and expensive.

After asking “Why?”, ask “What content should I make mobile?” “What need do I

serve by making my content available to mobile users?” “What value does it add

to their lives from a mobile perspective?”

The key point here is that certain things may not make sense in the mobile

context. For example, completely re-creating the interface of content-driven Web

site on a mobile device isn’t a good way to start a mobile project. A sports-based

Web site that provides stories and scores might work well with text-based scores

for mobile devices. However, it’s likely that when presenting the information on a

mobile device you will probably want to change the navigation structure and you

might want to have condensed versions of the stories.

The example emphasizes the need for starting with basic user goals in creating a

successful mobile strategy – take away any content that doesn’t support the basic

user goals and use cases. You should constantly ask, “Why should it be mobile?”
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 10

to keep your mobile presence aligned with user goals and to build a compelling

mobile experience.

That said, bear in mind that some users will want to experience the full desktop

version of your site while mobile, and should not be prevented from doing so –

see chapter 9. Going further with Adaptation.

Balancing Goals and Constraints

You should start a mobile project by defining the overall goals for the site.

Consider grouping these into the following three categories for easier

management and using their related questions to define goals:

• Business: These come from your project’s business goals and should be

clearly defined before you begin. What are your organization’s goals? How

does a mobile presence help your organization achieve its goals? Does it

improve my current business reach? Does it provide new business

opportunities? Is there an opportunity for innovation? Depending on your

business case, you could choose anything between providing a great

experience on all mobile devices, or creating a basic web site with free

tools in a short time.

• User: User goals (and sometimes constraints) reflect your audience’s

goals. How does your audience benefit from a mobile presentation? What

tasks will they accomplish with your mobile content? Does the immediacy

of mobile help the user? How will they interact with your content? Context

is big in mobile, so the key is to understand your users’ wants and needs.

Ensure that you value the attention, time and money of your audience, i.e.

value your customer.

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• Technical: Technology and resource opportunities and constraints. Look

at these goals as a triangle or three-legged stool. When making decisions,

try to find and maintain a balance on all three sides: business, user and

technical. If you lean on one side too much or too little, then the other

sides suffer.

User goals usually make a great place to start, and this is especially true when

considering mobile.

User-centered Design

User-centered design is a popular and smart way to approach interaction design.

Understanding the needs of users helps humanize the process and keeps your

project in check with their goals. Users know best and will cast their vote by

giving their attention to your site – or not.

A user-centered design approach fits especially well with mobile. Start with

context. Think about how and where people will interact with your content or

application. What content would they want to get through a mobile device?

Because of technical constraints and attention limitations, in most cases, the

answer becomes clear.

As an example, consider making a restaurant’s site mobile friendly. People

accessing the site from a mobile would probably want a textual menu, location

and directions, contact information and hours of operation. Remember that

mobile users often usually require information that they can action - so, as an

example, providing the day’s specialties on the site would be a good feature to

offer – with the phone number on the same page. Technological constraints
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 12

mean that you should verify the capabilities of the user's device before offering

features like online ordering and a PDF-based menu.

Thinking about how someone interacts with a mobile device and the context

around that provides the best first step in creating an effective mobile experience.

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is an important principle in developing your mobile

strategy. It is important that you understand what your audience is looking for so

you can anticipate how they will want to navigate your site, and so provide them

with quick and efficient navigation.

Analyzing demographic and market data on your target audience helps with

identifying the needs of your mobile user, but nothing works better than engaging

them in conversation. Talk to friends and family on how they would use your

content on a mobile device, and then branch out to friends of friends.

Professional Web developers use techniques such as focus groups to help them.
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3. Mobile Information Architecture

In the mobile context it is especially important to structure information as simply

as possible. Placing the right information in the right place is an important part of

providing a usable experience; getting it wrong means providing a poor

experience.

While building the mobile information architecture, think about users’ “click

investment”. Even at 3G speeds data retrieval on a mobile phone takes

significantly longer than we are accustomed to on a desktop PC. It doesn’t take

long for users to become frustrated with lengthy sequences of retrievals, and give

up. So getting this right is extremely important.

On the other hand, a user presented with a clear goal and intelligent ways to

reach it, may tolerate latency issues and the time taken to reach the goal. This is

best done by setting user expectations. Every link should use clear labels to

communicate to the user what to expect on the resulting page, thereby lowering

the risk of click disappointment.

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Keep It Simple

The best advice for creating a strong mobile information architecture is to keep it

as simple as possible. The following two approaches work well when structuring

your IA for mobile presentation:

• Limit choices. Take the content that’s relevant to a mobile user and

discard the rest. This results in a simple and focused IA that cuts down

the risk of the user getting lost. This approach works well with small,

focused sites.

• Create a simple site drill-down architecture, nesting content into well-

labeled categories. While this sounds straightforward, it’s necessary to

plan carefully before taking this approach. A typical Web site has sub-

pages - users follow a link to reach the sub-page. This is drilling down to

find the information the user seeks on the Web site.

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Drill-Down Recommendations

Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind when considering a drill-down

approach for your site:

• Limit categories as much possible: Users become increasingly disoriented

as they go deeper into a site. With a Mobile Web site, their tolerance often

stops at about five levels – the fewer levels the better You should adjust

this number upwards when targeting more

capable devices.

• Attempt to limit links to ten per page unless you

Jargon
know that the device can present more Accesskey: An attribute of XHTML

elements, like A and INPUT, the

information well: You should code your links with accesskey allows users to use the

accesskeys, so that the user can use the phone numerical keypad of a mobile device

to quickly navigate to areas of the

keypad to navigate links. We recommend a document or site.

assigning up to ten accesskeys to any page (0–9)

to ensure compatibility with older devices. You

should adjust this number upwards when

targeting more capable devices that can display this information better.

• Provide at least one content item with each category page i.e. avoid

empty links: Giving users at least one sample of the content within a

category is a good way to make sure that users get to the right place.

Consider placing a link to the featured content with a one or two sentence

overview. The shorter, the better.

• Prioritize links by activity or popularity: This is often referred to as “deck

placement.” Sorting links in order by frequency of access ensures that the

most sought-after content appears first on the list. You improve a user’s
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 16

chances of getting to the right destination. The drawback, however, is that

lower listed and newer items won’t perform as well. You can work around

this by maintaining some editorial control and featuring specific categories

or content within the category.

Once you determine your content requirements and define your category structure

and labels, compile them into a simple site map. This gives you a high-level

overview of your information space. Beware: It won’t give you a

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 17

complete idea of how the real site interaction will work – testing on real mobile

devices is always the best way to check this.

Click Streams

An important difference between developing for mobile and

developing for the desktop is creating the right flow of Jargon

information for the user. Due to the limited screen size, the
Deck: A term to describe a mobile
mobile designer might need to spread out information into Web site. Its origins are from WAP
1.0 and WML development which
uses the metaphor of “cards” as
multiple pages rather than present it on one page. A well-
pages.

designed click stream is an important concept in mobile More specifically, a Carrier Deck is
used to describe a Web presence
design and development. maintained by a mobile service
provider. When you access the Web
from a mobile device, the first page
you see is often referred to as the
This method is effective in showing what actions users will carrier deck.

likely take to reach their goals and is similar to the model Deck Placement: The term used to
describe where a third-party vendor
used on PC-oriented Web sites when long articles are Web site or application will appear on
the Carrier Deck. Default order of
content on most Carrier Decks is
published. By combining the concepts of a wire-frame and
determined by sales. New items often
have temporary “Top-Deck
a traditional click stream, we can more accurately recreate Placement”

how the user will interact with our information.

Mobile Service Providers

If you plan to have your site accessed through a mobile service provider portal –

often referred to as a carrier deck – then note that creating a click stream is a

crucial and often required deliverable.

They usually want to see an early click stream prior to development and may

make suggestions to improve usability. Some providers require you to submit a

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 18

click stream or site map when requesting consideration for the provider’s portal

or better deck placement.

Prototyping

While click streams give you a way to visualize how your mobile information

architecture will work in an ideal world, it doesn’t show what you could do

better. If you plan to test the usability of your information architecture with

potential users (as you always should), creating a prototype is a cheap and easy

method of finding potential and costly problems early on in the design and

development process. There are two main types of prototypes, paper prototypes

and HTML prototypes.

Paper Prototype

A paper prototype provides a simple way to gather valuable feedback on the

interaction of your site. You can create a paper prototype in a couple of hours

and present it almost anywhere. It can be tricky to find people to participate, but

you can usually muster a few volunteers from your

colleagues, friends and family.

Jargon
The most valuable point of a paper prototype exercise
Paper Prototype: Taking printed or
comes from having a dialog with participants. Ask how sketched wire frames and presenting
them to users asking them to perform
they use their mobile phone. When? Where? Using a series of tasks. The facilitator acts
as the “computer” changing the pages
their answers, you can determine what would be as the user makes selections.

Paper prototyping is an excellent

valuable information for them to access through their
method of doing early usability testing
for mobile interfaces.
mobile phone and why they would use it. Using your

paper prototype, have a prepared script of tasks for

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 19

them to perform. Start the activity by explaining what goal you want them to

reach. For example, “Find today’s movie times.” Use this time to interject

conceptual asides like, “Is this something you have done, or considered doing on

a mobile phone?” Their experiences or perceptions about mobile technology offer

valuable insight as to how they will perform the task.

Keep the tasks simple and avoid confusing them. Most importantly, leave room

in your script to improvise. If they get stuck on a particular screen, draw a new

script on the spot and see if it works better. Don’t rush from participant to

participant. After each study, you gain insight and find answers to some

problems. Keep modifying your script and screens for each participant until it’s

right.

HTML Prototypes

The HTML prototype is another method of prototyping that can take a little more

time to create than paper prototypes, but they can provide greater flexibility in

testing. Create each of the primary screens just as you would a paper prototype,

but instead build them with HTML. This lets you to link each of the screens

together creating a more realistic example of your interaction.

You can remotely test a simple HTML prototype through any desktop Web

browser or on the mobile device itself. While this testing method works in an

observed environment like a paper prototype, it’s harder to make changes on the

spot. The real benefit comes from the ability to email the prototype to others

asking them to perform one or two general tasks. The participant provides

feedback either by email or a survey.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 20

HTML prototypes offer a handy way to conduct iterative development, especially

in a medium that’s difficult to test. Getting feedback from real people while

developing naturally steers the project toward a much more usable and valuable

experience.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 21

4. Mobile Web Design

While designing for mobile may sound limiting compared to the sophistication of

designing for desktop-oriented Web sites, there is nonetheless great scope for

creating useful and appealing designs for mobile.

You can create rich mobile experiences but care needs to be taken to match the

design to the capabilities of the requesting device: a site is only as good as the

browser that displays it. Devices and browsers are already very good, and

improving rapidly, but you can still expect to encounter hurdles like slow load

times, reduced device compatibility and inconsistent stylesheet support.

Designing for Different Screen Sizes

Outside of the Mobile Web we’re lucky to have a manageable number of different

screen resolutions – most PCs support resolutions of approximately 1024 x 768

pixels and have a full keyboard and mouse. With the Mobile Web on the other

hand, there is a lot more diversity in the physical attributes of the devices –

screen sizes and keyboard layouts vary hugely across the range of devices

currently in use.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 22

By separating these screens into different classes of devices you can narrow the

number of screen sizes to worry about and so reduce the complexity of the design

hugely.

You should also bear in mind that it’s the screen width more then the screen

length, which defines the usability and attractiveness of the outcome. Images

that look good in a lower-end phone with a low resolution screen may fill only

half or a third of the screen of a high resolution phone, and may not be useful

without zooming.

This comes back to knowing your target audience and the devices they’re likely

to have. Once you know this, you’re better equipped to decide what screen

size(s) to target when doing the design.

Part II of this guide will go into a lot more detail on the tools and methods for

dynamically adapting content for the requesting device.

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Designing for the Right Device

When designing for mobile, think about the different classes of devices. The line

between devices is not well defined, making designing for mobile more

challenging. Instead, the boundaries shift constantly. Despite this, some simple

guidelines exist to help you determine what device class to target. The mobile

devices available today can be broken down in to a few broad classes:

1. Feature Phones: These are the most Jargon

common device type. Feature phones
Candy bar: a phone design that uses
a single rectangular form with the
usually come in candy bar, clamshell or keypad arranged below the screen

slider form. They have a 12-key layout Clam shell: a phone design that folds
in half, with the screen on one half
and typically come with voice, messaging and the keypad on the other.

and data capabilities. Most feature

phones sold in the past three years also

come with built-in digital cameras and media players. Companies typically

target these phones to the general consumer.

2. Smart Phones: Smart phones share the same features as a feature phone

with two primary differences: Its ability to run additional third-party

applications and a slightly larger screen. Smart phones typically use a

more full featured operating system and companies market them as them

as advanced multimedia devices to consumers or as productivity devices

to the business sector.

3. PDAs: These devices — evolved from the PDAs of the ‘90s — now often

include voice, messaging, and data capabilities. PDAs have much in

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common with the smart phone but differ in that much of their

functionality is primarily oriented towards organizational tasks rather then

voice communications. Another difference is that PDAs often include

QWERTY keyboard and stylus in place of the 12-key layout on normal

phones. They also feature a larger screen that can often switch between

portrait and landscape mode.

4. Voice-Only Phones: These devices are typically extremely low-cost

phones aimed at developing markets and are not relevant in the context of

the Mobile Web.

Feature Phones lead the market by a large margin but bear in mind that the

borderline between the Feature Phones and Smart Phones is constantly shifting

towards the Smart Phone category – the newest Feature Phones are often equal

in functionality to yesterday’s Smart Phones.

Mobile Web Navigation Paradigms

We are accustomed to a variety of navigation schemes on the Web such as

tabbed navigation schemes and menus located on the sides of the main page

content.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 25

These schemes give us useful visual clues about where we’re located within the

site and provide reference points on how to navigate within the site. Obviously,

this is more difficult to do in a mobile context because of the mobile devices’

limited screen size and navigation capability constraints. While it isn’t impossible

to use desktop style navigation scheme like tabs on a mobile device, they

generally do not work as well as they do on the desktop due to the limited device

screen size and pointing capabilities.

Primary Navigation

Secondary
Content
Navigation

Footer

The preferred and most common method of creating mobile navigation schemes

is to use a simple vertical list of options, often assigning and listing the

corresponding numbers (0–9) to the accesskeys for keypad navigation. You can

design this list in many ways using stylesheets or images. You should consider

supporting more advanced navigation methods for higher-end phones to ensure a

rich user experience on these devices.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 26

Showing multiple levels of navigation within your list usually doesn’t work well

because it gives users too many options and consumes valuable screen area. A

better way is to show only the options related to the page they’re viewing.

However, you should provide escape points, either as links to the next section, to

the parent section, to the home page or all of the above. These links usually work

best at the bottom of the page and allow the user to move on without scrolling

back to the top of the screen.

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Layout & Information Design

Not only does the desktop Web rely on navigation schemes we have taken for

granted, but also we also tend to design for it in landscape mode, where the

pages are wider than they are tall. Designing for the mobile requires switching

the thinking to portrait mode where the content is typically taller than it is wide.

Most landscape layouts and navigation schemes – like horizontal tabs and

columns of text – don’t well work on the mobile. Instead, think of the mobile like

a page in a book with a portrait orientation. So use a single column with text

that’s left justified.

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References & Resources

• Mobile Design Patterns (http://patterns.littlespringsdesign.com)

• Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone, by

Christian Lindholm, Turkka Keinonen (McGraw-Hill Professional)

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 29

5. Mobile Web Standards

Many different interpretations exist for the term “Web standards.” People overuse

this term, creating confusion regarding its real meaning.

“Web standards” can refer to the actual specification of how a language or

technology works. An industry standards body, such as the World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C), produces these specifications.

“Web standards” can also describe the techniques of applying the language or

technology as recommended by the standards body. These are essentially “best

practices” or a development philosophy. One example of this is the strict

separation of structural markup from visual presentation using cascading

stylesheets (CSS).

There have been accepted industry Web standards and best practices for mobile

development in place since the late ‘90s. The currently accepted mobile

standards continue to evolve along with mobile devices.

However, mobile devices throughout the world vary in how they render content.

This resembles the differences between Netscape and Internet Explorer in the

late ‘90s or even Firefox and Internet Explorer today. However, the mobile device

space is more fragmented: instead of having a few major mobile browsers, there

are many different many browser types and thousands of variants.

The good news is that of all the various browsers, many are simply variations of a

previous version. The inconsistency between the browsers is often minimal and

not worth the effort to work around.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 30

The bad news is that this problem is not likely to disappear any time soon. For as

long as software comes built-in the device from its manufacturer, it’s difficult to

upgrade. This is especially true for lower-end phones that do not normally allow

you to update the built-in applications. The resulting rendering inconsistencies

will likely continue as an annoyance for years to come.

That said, this situation will improve as time passes, just as it did with desktop

browsers. With increasing adoption, mobile browser developers will continue to

improve their browsers, helping stabilize the situation. Furthermore, there is now

a broad consensus on the Web standards that should be supported by mobile

browsers and support for this baseline set of standards is improving all of the

time.

This section of the guide focuses on the most important mobile standards

including XHTML-Basic and Wireless CSS.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)

WAP was the first widely deployed set of standards for

the Web on mobile. WAP is actually a suite of

Jargon
standards that cover both the page markup format
WAP (Wireless Application
(WML) and the protocols used to serve it (WTP, WTLS
Protocol): A standard for applications
that use wireless communication like
etc.) The WAP standards suite is managed by the mobile phones. Most modern phones
support WAP 2.0, which uses
Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). XHTML-MP as the primary markup
language while WAP 1,0 used WML.

WML (Wireless Markup Language):

There have been two major evolutions of WAP. An XML language used to specify
content and user interface for WAP
devices. Often mistakenly referred to
WAP 1.0 was the dominant standard in the earlier as WAP 1.0 given it is its default
markup language.
days of the Mobile Web and nearly all mobile service
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 31

providers and mass-market mobile phones in North America and Europe retain

support for at least WAP 1.0.

WAP 2.0 is the current version of the standard. One of the major goals of WAP

2.0 was to bring mobile devices closer to the desktop by adopting the following

changes:

• Support for the standard Internet communication protocols such as TCP/IP

and HTTP rather than the proprietary protocols used by WAP 1.0.

• Adoption of XHTML-MP as the primary markup language.

Wireless Markup Language (WML)

WML was the core markup language of WAP 1.X. WML is an XML-based markup

language that differs significantly from HTML (the markup language used in the

Web). The term “deck” first applied to WML sites since each interaction or page

is a “card” as shown in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//PHONE.COM//DTD WML
1.1//EN""http://www.phone.com/dtd/wml11.dtd" >
<wml>
<card id="main" title="First Card">
<p mode="wrap">This is a sample WML page.</p>
</card>
</wml>

With the development of XHTML-MP, WML is Jargon

now deprecated, but continues to serve as the
XHTML-MP: A subset of XHTML,
used as a markup language for
fall-back markup language for the WAP 2.0 wireless application development.
Since it’s the default markup language
specification. For this reason, mobile service of WAP 2.0, it’s often incorrectly
referred to as WAP 2.0.
providers often require creating Web sites with

WML as a “safe mode” for older mobile

browsers. Since WML is widely supported and is fairly consistent about browser
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 32

rendering, it serves this purpose well. The downside is that WML has more

limited design capabilities than XHTML and does not support the richer features

of more modern mobile devices.

XHTML Mobile Profile / XHTML Basic

XHTML-MP (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language - Mobile Profile) is a

specialization XHTML designed to incorporate features useful to mobile devices.

XHTML-MP 1.0 was defined by the OMA and is an extension of the original

W3C-inspired XHTML Basic 1.0.

Over time, OMA has developed XHTML-MP and now has a proposed 1.2 version

of its specification. Thanks to recent alignment efforts between the W3C and the

OMA, the proposed W3C XHTML Basic 1.1 and XHTML-MP 1.2 are virtually

indistinguishable.

Since both XHTML Basic and XHTML-MP are subsets of XHTML, the transition

to producing mobile-friendly content need not be difficult for developers –

standard development tools such as desktop browsers and integrated

development environments can be used for mobile authoring, and developers do

not need to understand a completely new language.

XHTML Basic 1.1 is set to become the standard level of support on mobile

devices – at present XHTML-MP is the most widely supported dialect. An

XHTML-MP 1.0 browser, and any XHMTL browser (such as a PC browser) will

properly render a site coded in XHTML Basic 1.1.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 33

Wireless CSS

XHTML-MP comes with a mobile-friendly means of using CSS to separate

presentation from the markup, just like on the desktop. The OMA-managed

Wireless CSS standard is a subset of CSS and is also part of the WAP 2.0

specification. Note that Wireless CSS is not backwards compatible with WML.

You can add Wireless CSS to your document the same way as you would for a

normal HTML document. Link to an external global stylesheet using the following

line:

<link href="external.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Insert styles at the document head the following example shows:

<style>
p {
font-size: small;
}
</style>

Wireless CSS supports a lot CSS attributes, but not all of them. Note that more

advanced styling techniques won’t likely work across multiple mobile browsers.

The best advice is to keep your CSS as simple as possible.

Like XHTML, OMA and W3C are working towards producing a harmonized

mobile version of CSS called CSS-MP. Work on this is still at a preliminary stage

so for now, stick with WCSS.

Remember that confusingly, XHTML-MP comes from OMA, and that CSS-MP

comes from the W3C.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 34

The Benefit of Web Standards Techniques

Using common Web standard development techniques means separating markup

and presentation. Controlling every element of the visual presentation using style

sheets frees content from the medium giving you greater flexibility and control.

Previously, developers used tables (and occasionally nested tables) in HTML

markup to hold small sliced up images create the desired, and often pixel-

perfect, design. Unfortunately, whenever a site needed a design change, tables

required developers to make large changes to the coded markup. Removing

tables simplified the process of changing the design’s look, feel and interface for

designers and developers.

In the early days of the Web standards movement, not all Web browsers

supported the extensive use of stylesheets for presentation. In this case, the Web

standards developer semantically coded pages meaning they coded the content

in the same order as it appeared on the screen. The approach lets users with

older browsers that poorly supported CSS to read and use the site.

This merge of techniques has benefited the Mobile Web. Developers produced

content for the desktop screen that could easily be adapted for the mobile screen.

Thanks to the fact that XHTML-Basic is derived from XHTML, phones supporting

XHTML-Basic can often support simple XHTML. In other words, a site coded in

XHTML may also work on a mobile device.

Please note that the one-size-fits-all approach represents the most basic

approach to mobile design. If you have capabilities and tools to develop content

that recognizes the characteristics of the device and serves specially formatted

content to it, this is perfectly OK under the dotMobi guidelines.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 35

W3C Initiatives

In spring of 2005, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the Mobile

Web Initiative (MWI) which consists of several working groups. The group’s goal

was to increase recognition of standards and best practices of publishing to the

Mobile Web.

The W3C MWI, of which dotMobi is a sponsor, Jargon

includes industry leading mobile service providers,
User Agent Profile (UA-Prof): A link
to an XML-based description of the
handset makers, a variety of mobile publishers and requesting device sent with each
HTTP request. The User Agent Profile
mobile developers. tells the webserver about the
requesting device’s basic capabilities
so the server delivers the right content
The initial groups are Mobile Web Best Practices to it.

Content Adaptation (or Adaptation):

(BPWG) and the Device Description Working Group The process of dynamically optimizing
content to the restrictions of the
(DDWG). requesting device. In other words, an
adaptation model relies on the mobile
device’s user agent profile to tell the
The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group’s goal server to deliver markup or images
based on the browser, screen size and
device capabilities. Mobile service
is “develop a set of technical best practices and
providers typically require submitted
mobile sites use the adaptation model
associated materials in support of development of Web to get a place on the carrier deck0.

sites that provide an appropriate user experience on

mobile devices.”

The Device Description Working Group’s goal has a more technical focus “to

enable the development of globally accessible, sustainable data and services that

provide device description information applicable to content adaptation.” The

organization addresses the problems with inconsistent or incomplete User Agent

Profiles (UA-Profs) that are required to execute content adaptation to specific

mobile devices.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 36

W3C Mobile Web Best Practices

The W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group (BPWG) has made a

concerted effort to understand and address the majority of issues that face the

Mobile Web user. The goal of the group is to advocate a variety of coding

principles and publishing best practices to developers, publishers and mobile

service providers.

The W3C Mobile Web Best Practices: Basic Guidelines (MWBP) is the first

deliverable of the working group and echoes the recognized best practices

established since 2000 in the Mobile Web community.

The recommendations and principles of this guide embrace and extend the W3C

Mobile Web Best Practice recommendations.

Default Delivery Context

The Default Delivery Context is defined by the BPWG as the minimal

environment in which the Web can be experienced. Many of the practices in the

Basic Guidelines document make reference to the DDC in their

recommendations. Designing Web sites with the DDC in mind helps ensure

interoperability with devices of this kind. However, only having those devices in

mind might mean that content providers miss the opportunity to provide a better

experience on more capable devices

mobileOK

mobileOK is the second deliverable from the W3C Mobile Web Best Practice

group. The goal is to create machine-readable labels and a mobileOK trustmark

to indicate that the Mobile Web site adheres to the Best Practices
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 37

recommendations. While optional, the mobileOK scheme is intended to help

increase advocacy, education and adoption of a people-centered Mobile Web

experience. The mobileOK scheme currently supports 2 levels, mobileOK Basic

and mobileOK, corresponding to two different levels of testing required. mobileOK

scheme is appropriate for low end devices. MobileOK is a useful tool to help site

builders to check that their work well on low-end devices but developers should

not limit themselves to targeting such limited devices.

This guide’s recommendations and principles support the W3C Mobile Web Best

Practices and the mobileOK scheme. The dotMobi MobiReady Report validates

and ensures sites are compliant with the mobileOK scheme as well as providing

additional helpful information.

dotMobi Registrant Rules

dotMobi has worked in conjunction with all major mobile service providers,

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Mobile Web development

community to develop recommendations and best practices meant to simplify

Mobile Web site development.

DotMobi wants to ensure that all .mobi domains provide the best possible

experience to mobile users. Therefore, dotMobi requires all registrants to adhere

to the following rules:

• All dotMobi sites must be available in the standard XHTML-Mobile Profile

1.0 or later (e.g. XHTML Basic 1.1), and this must be the default

presentation, unless the site knows that the device supports something

else.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 38

• A mobile user must be able to access a dotMobi site from

http://www.domain.mobi as well as http://domain.mobi

• A dotMobi Web site must not use frames.

In addition to these mandatory rules, dotMobi recommends that developers

follow W3C Best Practice guidelines, but will not enforce these.

References & Resources

• WAP 2.0 Specification (http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm)

• WAP 2.0 Technology White Paper

(http://www.wapforum.org/what/WAPWhite_Paper1.pdf)

• XHTML-MP 1.0 Specification

(http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/affiliates/wap/wap-277-

xhtmlmp-20011029-a.pdf)

• Comparison of XHTML Mobile Profile and XHTML Basic

http://pc.dev.mobi/?q=node/119)

• W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group

(http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/)

• W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/mobileOK/)

• MobiReady Report (http://ready.mobi)

• W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Basic Guidelines

(http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/)
DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 39

• dotMobi Switch On Web Developers Guide

(http://pc.mtld.mobi/documents/dotmobi_Switch_On_Web_Developer_Gui

de3.html)

• XHTML-MP Specifications

(http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/affiliates/wap/wap-277-

xhtmlmp-20011029-a.pdf)

• Wireless CSS Specifications

(http://www.openmobilealliance.org/release_program/docs/Browsing/V2_2

-20040609-C/OMA-WAP-WCSS-V1_1-20040609-C.pdf)

• XHTML Modularization (http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xhtml-

modularization-20010410/)
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 40

6. Getting Started with XHTML

Creating basic mobile-specific Web sites using XHTML is as simple as coding a

basic HTML site. Since both XHTML Basic and XHTML-MP are similar to

XHTML, it only requires a few changes to format content for the mobile context.

In the next section, we cover the XHTML development recommendations for and

best practices for mobile, but we start with the basics of creating XHTML pages.

If you are familiar with XHTML and the basic principles of Web standards, then

you should know most of this already.

Let’s walk through examples of a mobile-specific page beginning with a look at

the character encoding and doctype that start off our page.

Always Use the Correct Encoding & Doctype

Character Encoding

Ensuring the use of the correct character encoding and doctype makes sure that

the page renders as expected.

The XML character encoding directive tells the browser how characters on the

page should display. It appears on the first line of each XHTML Basic page as the

following example shows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 41

Doctype

The document type (doctype) tells the browser how the page needs to be

rendered, including the rules and how strictly to follow these rules.

Here is an example of a doctype declaration for XHTML Basic 1.1:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd">

Always Use Well-formed Code

For those not familiar with XHTML, the first thing to know is that all code should

validate (according to the doctype) and be well-formed (a valid XML document).

Here is a basic run down of the rules of well-formed XML as well as the key

differences between XHTML and HTML.

• All elements should be closed, e.g. <br/>.

These are also acceptable: <br></br>, and <br />.

• All non-empty elements should be closed:

<p>Example Text</p>

• All elements must be properly nested:

<em><strong>Example Text</strong></em>

• The alt attribute must be used for all images:

<img src="image.png" alt="Image Description" />

• Text should appear within a block level element and not directly in the

body: <body><p>Example Text</p></body>

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 42

• Inline elements should always nest with block level elements:

<h2><em>Example Text</em></h2>

• All attributes should appear within quotes:

<p class="names"/>

• All elements and attributes should use lowercase:

<p class="Sm">Example Text <hr noshade="true"/></p>

There are many online Web tools that you can use to validate your markup

including the MobiReady Report and the W3C Validation service. There are also

browser-based tools such as the HTML Validator Firefox Extension that can be

used throughout the development cycle to keep an eye on your pages.

Always Avoid Using Tables for Layout

We can now add our content in the body of our document, but first we need to

add structural elements to contain each logical section, a header, footer and the

main body, for example.

With HTML 4, it was common practice to use tables to control the layout of

content. This technique, however, constricts the use of our markup by integrating

presentational layout into our code. While this doesn’t seem like a critical issue,

it becomes a big problem when the page is viewed in multiple mobile browsers.

Instead, use XHTML-friendly <div> elements to logically contain our content for

later styling to control the presentation. Since we usually display text in a single

section, the structure is straightforward with a content container in the middle of

a header and footer:

<body>
<div id="header">
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 43

<!-- Header placeholder -->

</div>
<div id="content">
<!-- Content placeholder -->
</div>
<div id="footer">
<!-- Footer placeholder -->
</div>
</body>

Place Navigation in the Content Body

Unlike on the desktop, it usually isn’t a good idea to have a navigation list on

every page. Given the vertical orientation of the mobile page, you should show

only navigation that’s relevant to the page, thereby reducing page weight and

scrolling. Thus, the navigation goes into the content body:

<div id="content">
<ol>
<li><a href="news.html">News</a><li>
<li><a href="products.html">Our Products</a></li>
<li><a href="customers.html">Our Customers</a></li>
<li><a href="about.html">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></li>
</ol>
</div>

Use accesskeys in the Primary Navigation

The primary navigation should include an assigned accesskey that corresponds

to a keypad number key whenever possible:

<li><a href="news.html" accesskey="1">News</a></li>

This code links the News item to the “1” key on the mobile keypad and displays

the number 1 by it (if the <li> it is part of is the first in the list, of course).

Obviously, navigation that exceeds the number of keys on the keypad makes it
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 44

difficult to provide accesskeys for lists with more than ten items. While not a

requirement for all links, accesskeys are useful for primary navigation.

Use Ordered Lists for Navigation

Unlike on the desktop Web it isn’t the best idea to have a navigation list on every

page. Given the vertical orientation of the mobile page you should only show

navigation relevant to the page, reducing page weight and scrolling. Instead we

will add our navigation into the content body.

<div id="content">
<ol>
<li><a href="news.html" accesskey="1">News</a><li>
<li><a href="products.html" accesskey="2">Our Products</a></li>
<li><a href="customers.html" accesskey="3">Our Customers</a></li>
<li><a href="about.html" accesskey="4">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="contact.html" accesskey="5">Contact Us</a></li>
</ol>
</div>

For our home page, we can take certain liberties in providing a description for

each link to let users know what to expect in each section. By wrapping the

description into a <span>, we can use CSS to style it differently from the

navigation:

<div id="content">
<ol>
<li>
<a href="news.html">News</a>
<span class="description">Read the latest about our products.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="products.html">Our Products</a>
<span class="description">Browse our product descriptions.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="customers.html">Our Customers</a>
<span class="description">View our customers.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="about.html">About Us</a>
<span class="description">What we do? How can we help
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 45

you?</span></li>
<li>
<a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a>
<span class="description">Telephone, email and location
details.</span>
</li>
</ol>

Linking Phone Numbers

One of the benefits of the Mobile Web is that its users primarily view it on a

phone, allowing the user to quickly and easily make phone calls. It’s an

opportunity to help the user and save steps:

<a href="tel:+12065450210">+1 206 545-0210</a>

Like any hyperlink, any text could appear between the <a> element to initiate a

call. However, the recommendation is to display the phone number.

Dealing with Forms can be Tricky

Entering data into a Mobile Web site can be a difficult and time-consuming

process. To avoid wasting the user’s time and causing frustration, use forms

sparingly.

However, when using forms, reduce the required information as much as

possible. The following creates a contact form with few fields:

<form method="post" action="process_comment.cgi">

<dl>
<dt>Your comment is about:</dt>
<dd><input type="radio" id="cat1" value="website" accesskey="w" />
<label for="cat1">Our <span class="accesskey">W</span>eb
Site</label></dd>
<dd><input type="radio" id="cat2" value="product" accesskey="p" />
<label for="cat2">Our <span
class="accesskey">P</span>roducts</label></dd>
<dd><input type="radio" id="cat3" value="news" accesskey="n" />
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 46

<label for="cat3">A <span class="accesskey">N</span>ews

Article</label></dd>
<dd><input type="radio" id="cat4" value="other" accesskey="o" />
<label for="cat3"><span class="accesskey">O</span>ther</label></dd>
<dt><label for="comment">Your comment:</label></dt>
<dd><textarea id="comment" name="comment" rows="5"
cols="20"></textarea></dd>
<dt><label for="email">Your e-mail (optional):</label></dt>
<dd><input type="text" name="email" id="email" /></dd>
<dt><input type="submit" value="Send" /></dt>
</dl>
</form>

With all the basics covered, the code looks like the following when putting it all

together to create an XHTML Basic homepage.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Site Name</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml" />
<meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="max-age=300" />

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"/>

</head>
<body>
<!--
All pages start with a common header and navigation bar so that users
can
navigate back to earlier pages without needing to scroll right down to
the
bottom of the page. Note that we still provide styling using XHTML
elements where appropriate rather than by using the equivalent CSS
styles.
This is so that the pages look their best on devices that do not support
CSS.
-->
<div id="header">
<h1><img src="logo.gif" width="100" height="50" alt="Company Logo"
/></h1>
<p><small>Home Page</small></p>
</div>

<!--
The page content is sandwiched between the common header and footer. In
this case, our content is a set of links to sections. Because the
content
of this page is static, it is sensible to provide access keys so that
users can access links immediately. Each section is labeled by the key
number corresponding to its access key.
-->
<div id="content">
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 47

<ol>
<li>
<a href="news.html" accesskey="1">News</a>
<span class="description">Read the latest news about
<span class="company">Company</span> and our products.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="products.html" accesskey="2">Our Products</a>
<span class="description">Browse our product portfolio
and request further information.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="customers.html" accesskey="3">Our Customers</a>
<span class="description">How <span class="company">Company</span>
products help our customers succeed.</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="about.html" accesskey="4">About Us</a>
<span class="description">What do <span class="company">
Company</span> do? How can we help you?</span>
</li>
<li>
<a href="contact.html" accesskey="5">Contact Us</a>
<span class="description">Contact information: telephone, email
and postal details plus a map of our location.</span>
</li>
</ol>
</div>

<!--
The common footer provides the copyright statement for your company and
a
second copy of the navigation bar so that users don't need to scroll
right
back to the top.
-->
<div id="footer">
<p><small>&copy; Company Ltd. All rights reserved.</small></p>
</div>

</body>
</html>

The following is the associated CSS file style.css that provides the styling

information for the page:

body { margin: 0; }
#header { background: #e0ffe0; color: green; border-bottom: solid 1px
green; margin: 0 0 5px 0; padding: 5px; }
#header h1 { margin: 0 0 0 2px; }
#header p { margin: 0 0 0 10px; }
#footer { background: #e0ffe0; color: green; border-top: solid 1px green;
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 48

margin: 10px 0 0 0; }
.company { font-weight: bold; }
.small { font-size: small; }
.description { font-size: small; display: block; }
hr { clear: both; border:solid; border-width:1px; border-bottom-
color:#007300; border-top-color:#ffffff; border-left-color:#ffffff;
border-right-color:#ffffff;}
a { text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: green; }

References & Resources

• W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Basic Guidelines

(http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/)

• Global Authoring Practices (http://www.passani.it/gap/)

• Firefox HTML Validator (http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/)

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 49

7. Recommendations & Best

Practices
The transition from understanding XHTML to developing with XHTML Basic (and

XHTML MP) – the native markup language of the Mobile Web – can be simple in

principle. The real complexity comes with supporting a variety of devices, older

devices or trying to programmatically adapt content for different devices, which

appears in the next section.

Good Mobile Web development only requires a developer to understand XHTML

and the best practices collected over the years by the mobile development

community. These practices come from common obstacles that arise when

dealing with popular mobile browsers and devices.

Together with the mobile development community and the W3C Mobile Web

Best Practices Working Group, dotMobi has compiled Mobile Web development

best practices and recommendations. These recommendations aim to create the

best possible user experience for the Mobile Web user.

dotMobi has also created the MobiReady Report (http://ready.mobi) for

developers to verify that their Mobile Web site meets these recommendations.

This section addresses each of the individual best practices for Mobile Web

development along with explanation of the problem, the how and the why you

should implement them.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 50

Page Information

The following best practices are related to the overall page information rather

than specific content within the page.

Character Encoding

Problem: Correct character encoding is critical in making sure pages render

correctly on devices. Different document types require different character

encodings. XML documents should always have a UTF-8 character set while

documents served as MIME type text/html should use ISO 8859-1.

Solution: The following line shows how to set encoding correctly in an XML

document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

If you do not specify the correct character encoding for your pages your page may

display strange characters when rendered on a mobile device. The

recommendation is to use UTF-8 encoding for maximum compatibility.

Browsers assume, by default, that pages delivered with the text/html MIME

type should use ISO-8859-1. Either way you should set the character encoding

explicitly: using the HTTP header and using the XML header.

If you develop Web pages in a Windows environment, note the default character

encoding is often Windows CP 1252 – which is similar to, but not identical to

ISO-8859-1.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 51

XHTML MP 1.0 Doctype

Problem: Using the incorrect markup type, specified by the doctype, can cause

content to render erratically or incorrectly.

Solution: For now, use XHTML MP 1.0 as the default markup for mobile-specific

pages.

Applying the following XHTML MP 1.0 doctype tells mobile browsers how to

render the content:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN"

"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd">

Discussion: Since XHTML-MP is a sub-set of XHTML, many Mobile Web

browsers render simple XHTML pages. However, for mobile-specific sites, the

recommendation is to use only the elements defined in the XHTML-MP sub-set

as your default markup. If you know that the accessing device supports a wider

range of markup you can use this to provide a richer experience.

MIME Types

Problem: The MIME types sent my HTTP servers provide important information

to browsers on how to treat a document. When sending incorrect MIME types

with a document, it may cause the browser to incorrectly interpret and fail to

render the document.

Solution: For XHTML-MP and Basic, the recommended MIME type is

application/xhtml+xml. Unlike HTML, XHTML-MP shouldn’t be served as

text/html except in some very specific circumstances.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 52

Administrators often set up Web servers correctly for more common document

types such as HTML and CSS, but not for XHTML. Verify the addition of the

XHTML to the list of MIME types on the Web server.

Page Titles

Problem: Page titles surrounded by the <title> element are an important, but

frequently overlooked page element. Good titles increase the discoverability and

usability of Web pages.

Solution: Add a short descriptive page title for easy identification while keeping

in mind that the mobile device may truncate the title. Most devices use the page

title as a default label for bookmarks, so a title helps the user identify content

within bookmarks.

Discussion: It is common to use only the site name as the title, but it doesn’t

help users as much as it could. A helpful document title consists of the primary

title, optionally followed by your site name as shown in the next example:

<title>Description of Page Content | Site Name</title>

Search engines primarily use page titles to identify content. Also, while naming

your pages, think about how users will search for your content on search engines.

Use of Stylesheets

Problem: Use CSS to control the presentation of the page.

Solution: Using CSS stylesheets helps with consistency and centralizing styles,

and lowers the overall page size.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 53

Discussion: Many mobile browsers prioritize markup before presentation, loading

stylesheets and images last. This sometimes causes markup to appear briefly

without styles while the external stylesheet loads. Get around this by adding

important styles to the document head alongside using an external stylesheet.

The recommendation is to always use CSS, separated from your markup. This

allows you to control the page presentation while decreasing the page size and

allowing the browser to cache the CSS for later use.

Objects or Scripts

Problem: Most mobile devices don’t support embedded objects or scripts and it’s

usually not possible for users to install plug-ins to workaround this. Design

content with this in mind. Even where a device does support scripting, steer clear

of using it unless you can’t find another way to reach your objectives. Use of

client-side scripting increases power consumption and drains the battery faster.

Solution: Skip scripts and embedded objects.

Discussion: While many modern browsers support scripting it may be disabled

so you should ensure that your page works well without it.

If you must rely on either scripting or embedded objects, apply an advanced

device detection strategy, routing devices with better scripting support to pages

specifically tailored to support those devices.

Auto Refresh

Problem: A Web page uses auto-refresh, but it incurs extra download times and

data charges.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 54

Solution: Omit creating periodically auto-refreshed pages unless you notify the

user and provide a way to stop it or configure the refresh interval

Redirects

Problem: Using markup to redirect pages increases the load time that comes

with downloading and processing another page.

Solution: If you need to use redirects, configure the server to perform redirects

using HTTP 3xx codes.

Discussion: Avoid redirects as much as possible since they add both time and

cost to for the user to reach the final page.

Caching

Problem: Using cached information sometimes reduces the need to reload

resources such as images and stylesheets, thereby lowering download times and

costs.

Solution: By specifying cache information on your mobile pages, you lower the

number of times devices download common resources. This especially helps with

resources like a stylesheet or logo. The following example shows how to use a

meta directive to set a Cache-control header:

<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="max-age=300"/>

Discussion: Not all devices support cache control, but caching is especially

important for mobile devices due to the high network latencies typically

experienced on mobile networks.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 55

Note that it may make sense to wait until you complete development before

adding cache information, otherwise you won’t see development changes when

caching does its job.

Structure

The following practices are related to the overall structure of a page.

Structure

Problem: Developing a Mobile Web site with poorly-formed and un-semantically-

structured content.

Solution: It is good practice for documents to show structure with headings and

sub-headings. This means coding in order and in a semantically correct fashion

to ensure the code elements and the order in which they appear makes sense

without manipulating the presentation. The following shows an example of

semantic coding:

<h1>Top Level Heading</h1>

<h2>Second Level Heading</h2>
<p>Paragraph Body</p>
<h3>Third Level Heading</h3>
<p>Paragraph Body</p>
<h2>Second Level Heading</h2>
<p>Paragraph Body</p>
<h3>Third Level Heading</h3>
<p>Paragraph Body</p>
<h4>Fourth Level Heading</h4>
<p>Paragraph Body</p>

Discussion: Using structural markup, rather than formatting effects, makes it

easier to modify content when it splits into several pages. Furthermore, structural

markup potentially facilitates access to the sections of the document that a user

wants. Use headings in accordance with the specification whenever applying

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 56

them. For example, they should properly nest based on their level, as shown in

the previous example.

Tables

Problem: On smaller screens, tables often don’t work well or render erratically.

Solution: Unless you know a device supports tables, shun using tables. Smaller

tables with two or three columns work on most devices, but it’s not a

recommended approach.

Discussion: Use a definition list <dl> instead of a table to display data.

Nested Tables

Problem: Nested tables (tables within tables), like tables used for layout, don’t

work well in mobile design especially since they render poorly and increase the

page size.

Solution: Instead of nested tables to control presentation, create well-formed

XHTML and control the presentation with stylesheets.

Tables for Layout

Problem: Layout tables, such as nested tables, don’t work well in mobile design

due rendering inconsistencies.

Solution: The Web design industry considers using tables for layout a bad

practice, particularly for mobile devices. It’s more efficient to do page layouts

with a style-based layout producing a layout that adapts well to the narrow

screens. Table-based layouts combine presentation and markup making

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 57

development more difficult and adapting a page for other mediums almost

impossible.

Discussion: Tables are cumbersome and difficult to support. Table-based layouts

restrict your ability to adapt for multiple devices and increase page size. Applying

a style-based layout adds flexibility while reducing page size.

Frames

Problem: Frames don’t work well in mobile design because most devices don’t

support them, and they cause usability problems. Frames are not allowed in

dotMobi sites.

Solution: Instead of framesets, apply server side includes (SSI) or other

techniques for loading local content. Instead of using a frameset to hold a site

within yours, use a link to the other site.

Content

The following best practices are related the main content of a page.

Number of Links

Problem: Too many links on a page makes it difficult for the user to navigate and

read content. Many mobile browsers stop scrolling vertically on pressing the

down key when a link appears in the currently viewed section of the page.

Solution: Try to limit links to 10 links per page and add accesskeys to links

whenever possible, so that user can navigate with the keypad rather than having

to scroll to the desired link.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 58

Prioritize links by popularity so that frequently accessed links show up at the top.

This creates a better experience by giving users quick access to what they want

and ensures important content appears above the fold. When prioritizing links by

popularity, care should be taken to ensure that new links are highlighted to

ensure that they are noticed.

The end of each page should give the user some place to go. This could have a

link to the parent category, links to related content, a link to return home or show

the navigation list, anything to help the user move forward instead of scrolling to

the top of the page for options.

Discussion: Design your content so that users reach frequently accessed

information within a minimum number of page retrievals. However, it may lead

to more page retrievals to reach less frequently accessed information. As a rule of

thumb, users get frustrated if it takes more than four steps to reach their

destination. Whether or not this is possible depends on the nature of the site

and, in particular, the grouping of items in menus to provide logical themes.

Access Keys

Problem: Navigating a mobile site cam easily turn into a difficult and

cumbersome experience.

Solution: Associating an accesskey attribute with each link gives the user an

easy way to access the link using the device’s keypad. They come in handy when

used consistently across a site letting users jump quickly to their chosen sections

without scrolling to find a link. The following shows how to associate an

accesskey with a link:

<li><a href="link.html" accesskey="1">Link 1</a></li>

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 59

Discussion: You can have more than 10 links per page, but some devices may

not have more than 10 buttons. When possible, create accesskeys for all

navigational links. You can save some accesskeys by not using them for links

appearing within content blocks. It may make sense to use a consistent set of

accesskeys across a site so that, for example, the “0” key always goes back to

the main menu regardless of what page you are currently on.

Free Text Input Controls

Problem: It’s difficult for the user to enter content into free text input controls

such as text boxes and text areas.

Solution: While these may be unavoidable in certain cases in forms that need

information from the user, try to use text boxes and text areas as rarely as

possible.

Cut the need for text entry by relying on radio buttons, select boxes and lists of

links.

Default Input Mode

Problem: It’s possible to limit the type of data that entered into an input field by

defining the input mask or input mode using CSS. This makes it easier for users

to enter information into a free text field.

Solution: Automatically set the input mode (alphanumeric or numeric) of the

mobile device’s keypad according to the input mask value. The following example

limits the input to only numeric values.

<input type="text" style=' -wap-input-format: "*N"' />

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 60

The next example limits the input to alpha characters by capitalizing the first

letter.

<input type="text" style=' -wap-input-format: "A*a"' />

Images

Image Sizes

Problem: Thanks to the diversity of mobile screen sizes, some text and block

elements automatically wrap to the screen dimensions while large images fall off

the screen.

Solution: Edit images so they’re as small as possible in terms of pixel dimensions

unless you know that the device supports bigger images. Most mobile device

screens are about 120 pixels wide. Keep images narrower wider than the screen

size unless there’s no better way to represent the information.

Discussion: Unless you are using advanced device detection techniques, the

width of an image should stay under 120 pixels. Note that if you simplify the

image creation this way you should avoid use of images that are composed of

dense information since this information may be lost on higher resolution

displays where the image is rendered physically smaller.

Declare Image Dimensions

Problem: Not specifying the pixel height and width of an image forces the mobile

device to calculate the values, and consequently increases render times and

degrades performance.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 61

Solution: Images such as bitmaps have an intrinsic pixel size. Telling the

browser its size in advance prevents the browser from having to re-render the

page when it receives the image. Letting the server resize the image cuts down

the data transferred and the time it takes for the client to process and scale the

image. If the specified width and height attributes match the intrinsic size, then

the client doesn’t resize the image.

Image Maps

Problem: Most mobile devices lack a pointing device like a mouse or rolling ball,

making it difficult for users to use server-side image maps.

Solution: Omit image maps unless you know the requesting device supports

them.

Alt Text

Problem: Downloading images considerably increases the time to load your

page.

Solution: Creating pages that are readable without images lets your users browse

your page in text-only mode. As a result, download times and costs go down. If

the user has images turned on, textual descriptions help users assess the page’s

usefulness prior to the images’ arrival.

Always provide alt text value for images.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 62

Other Best Practices

Valid Markup

Problem: Using invalid XHTML Basic or Mobile Profile on mobile pages.

Solution: Use valid XHTML Basic or MP on mobile pages for maximum

efficiency.

Discussion: Non-validating markup may not display correctly or efficiently on

mobile devices. In some cases, especially on older phones, non-validating

XHTML-MP won’t render at all, leaving users with an error message in their

browser. Note that different markup types are acceptable if you know that the

requesting device supports them.

Pop-up Windows

Problem: Most mobile devices don’t support pop-up windows.

Solution: Even when devices support pop-up windows, changing the current

window confuses the user. Avoid the use of pop-up windows.

External Resources

Problem: The client device must separately download every external resource

listed in a page (images, stylesheets and other objects). This adds time and cost

to view a page.

Solution: Carefully consider the number of external resources you use, limit them

and keep each resource’s file size as small as possible without sacrificing

usability across multiple devices.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 63

Discussion: Most mobile browsers download each resource as a separate

element, beginning with downloading and rendering markup, followed by

stylesheets and images. Depending on network speed, the user may see the

basic markup while external resources download. When the download finishes,

the browser renders the page again with the included elements.

Total Page Download Size

Problem: Large pages take longer to load and increase data charges.

Solution: Keep markup, images, stylesheets and all external resource files small

in size.

Discussion: The rule of thumb is to keep Mobile Web pages under 10Kb in size,

counting both the markup and the included resources. Larger pages sizes of up to

about 25Kb may make sense in certain situations – the key point is to remember

that there is no hard limit here and that different situations may require different

solutions.

References and Resources

• MobiReady Report (http://ready.mobi)

• W3C Validation Service (http://validator.w3.org/)

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 64

8. Mobile Publishing
Publishing is probably the most complicated element of the Mobile Web. People

from the desktop Web development community need to adjust their view when

developing for the Mobile Web.

Luckily, publishing to the Mobile Web does not have to be complicated. There is

plenty of room in-between the simple and the complex for any developer and any

project to find a home.

While it is easy to segue into the inner workings of device detection of the

differences in browser rendering, in this section we focus on establishing a

reasonable development baseline and easy ways to begin mobile publishing.

Supporting Devices & Browsers

Supporting devices and browsers can be difficult and time consuming Every year,

the industry sells hundreds of different mobile device types/variants worldwide.

Mobile service providers often customize mobile browsers on their devices,

creating a large number of different deployed browsers.

As a rough guide, every major browser version has a lifetime of approximately 50

different device models, with various minor revisions.

Since most devices don’t allow over-the-air updates, faulty devices can’t receive

regular upgrades leading companies to pull them from the market and replace

them with a new version. This typically includes a revised version of the browser,

perhaps exacerbating the problem.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 65

Most mobile service providers recommend supporting devices for two years, a

difficult task.

Simplifying Device Support

Supporting devices and browsers is a major concern for many developers from

the Web community accustomed to dealing with differences in multiple Web

browsers.

While supporting multiple mobile devices and browsers gets complex, the

situation is not as bad as many believe. This belief comes from looking at the

mobile browser landscape in the same way as desktop Web browser landscape.

Consider the following points:

• Only Mobile Web sites that are part of a mobile service provider portal

must support all provisioned devices and browsers. Mobile Web sites

outside of mobile service provider portals can support whatever devices

and browsers the publisher wishes.

• Working to the capabilities of the W3C Default Delivery Context should

ensure that a site will work with most existing browsers but remember

that a better experience can be provided by recognizing the device and

using its capabilities.

• Depending on your target audience and locale, older or poorly designed

devices may not need to be supported. Drawing a line with device and

browser support is relatively easy because those with older or poor quality

devices typically don’t use the Mobile Web. You can verify this by

reviewing common user agents recorded in your Web server’s access logs.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 66

One way to approach this problem is to focus on five classes of devices that span

a range of capabilities. Of the hundreds of devices available, supporting five

mainstream devices makes a great place to start. Obviously supporting more

devices ensures greater compatibility with more devices and developers should

always endeavor to do this, but supporting five devices disparate devices can do

the job. Here is an example:

• A Nokia Series 40

• A Motorola V series, (v3 aka RAZR, v600, v500, etc.)

• A modern Samsung and/or LG device

• A Smart Phone, like Nokia s60 (or Series 60)

• A PDA, like a Treo or Windows Mobile device

Site Naming

Mobile pages are just Web pages published to any Web server. Nevertheless, it

can be problem a problem getting mobile users enter the URL for your site. The

following options are some of the ways getting users to access a Mobile Web site:

• Use the mobile-specific .mobi top-level domain (instead of .com, .net or

.org) to indicate that your site is mobile friendly.

• If you do not have a dotMobi domain, you may try to educate the user to

enter a mobile-friendly URI e.g. example.com/mobile or

mobile.example.com.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 67

• Detect the mobile device automatically and redirect the user to a mobile-

friendly location. In this case, the user simply enters domain.com. In this

case ensure that you provide an option for the user to browse the PC

version of the site – many users have advanced mobile devices may

choose to access the richer version of the site

For more information on how to structure your site, when to redirect the user to a

separate mobile-only only site, see Chapter 9. Going further with Adaptation.

dotMobi

The .mobi top-level domain is the ICANN approved top-level domain specifically

for mobile devices giving publishers the option to use an alternate domain for

their mobile site. Instead of using device detection, sub-domains or directors,

mobile users go to example.mobi.

Much like the sub-domain approach, dotMobi sites sometimes use a separate

server or virtual host, separating desktop sites from mobile sites on the same

server.

If you own a dotMobi domain, you can route all traffic to it using device detection

or server redirects.

Server Directory

You can publish Web sites written in XHTML Basic to most Web servers without

re-configuring the server.

This publishing approach works in shared hosting environments, and it’s

compatible with most content management systems that can publish alternate

templates.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 68

Sub-domains

The sub-domains approach to publishing, similar to server directories, lets you

publish a mobile site to a location on your server, mobile.example.mobi,

wap.example.mobi or m.example.mobi, for instance.

Since most servers treat sub-domains as separate Web sites with a unique root

directory and server directives, this approach is convenient for your Mobile Web

site because it keeps desktop and Mobile Web sites separated.

It’s possible to redirect traffic from a server directory to sub-domains to give the

user easier access while taking advantage of separated environments. For

example, entering example.mobi/mobile redirects the user to

example.domain.mobi

Configuring Server MIME Types

The Internet Media Type – better known as MIME type – is an Internet standard

for indicating the format of a message. It is used extensively in many Internet

protocols. In the context of the Web in particular, it’s used as part of the HTTP

protocol to help the browser understand how to parse and render content that it

receives.

For each request made from a browser to a Web server, HTTP requires that the

server includes a Content-Type header identifying the format of the response.

Upon receiving this Content-Type header, the browser can decide how to decode

the response and render it in an appropriate form.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 69

In the mobile context, the server sends MIME types to the mobile browser. Many

Web servers, by default, do not have the correct MIME types defined for mobile

markup standards. It is important set up the Web server to serve the right

Content-Type headers for mobile markup languages.

At best this may cause the browser to render the page more slowly; at worst your

pages may be unreadable or result the mobile device to produce an error

message.

Use the value application/xhtml+xml for all recommended mobile content

types (XHTML-MP and XHTML Basic).

Site Testing

Testing is an vital component of mobile publishing. Mobile testing is a big job

considering the many devices and the differences in how content renders on the

device. Fortunately, simple testing methods exist for testing your mobile Web

site.

One tip before beginning: Create a simple page on the development server

containing links to the URLs for the sites you plan to test. Bookmark this site on

each device used in the test. This way you avoid having entering URLs into the

devices many times over.

Desktop Testing

You can – and it’s recommended – test your markup and stylesheets on a

desktop browser before trying it on a device. Though desktop browsers have

better CSS support, you can confirm the basic markup and stylesheets. Doing
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 70

testing on the desktop comes in handy in finding errors quickly and easily

compared with searching for errors on the device.

Opera
The Opera desktop browser has a small screen view that mimics a mobile screen

when loading a mobile stylesheet or condenses the page. Be aware that Opera’s

small screen view is a little wider than mainstream mobile devices.

Frames
Another way to test on the desktop is to create a Web page with an inline

frameset or iframe, specify the dimensions to match your target mobile screen

and add the URL of your mobile site like the following example:

<iframe src ="mobile/index.html" width="240" height="320"

style="border:1px solid;"> </iframe>

These steps create a reasonable representation of a mobile device on the

desktop. You can even go as far as to wrap the frame with an image of a phone

for further realism.

Firefox
When using advanced device detection methods, Firefox – with help from the

User Agent Switcher extension – lets you change the User Agent HTTP header

you send to the server. Once you add the data from the supported mobile user

agents, you can test how each of your sites displays.

Other helpful all-purpose extensions for Firefox are the Web Developers Toolbar

and Firebug (which provides very useful XHTML and CSS debugging).
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 71

Emulator Testing

Another method of testing a mobile site is to use a phone emulator. This is

typically a desktop or Web-hosted application that mimics the device experience

for a particular device or class of devices. The accuracy of phone and browser

emulators vary from a perfect mimicking of the browser rendering to rough

approximations.

While an emulator does not replace testing on an actual device, they are a very

useful tool during development to do quick verification of how your code displays

without loading it on a real mobile browser. Note that regardless of how perfectly

a browser mimics the rendering of page on a real device, they can’t reproduce

the overall experience of using a real device, since factors such as network speed

and latency are involved. For this reason, emulators are a very useful step in any

testing program, but should never be used to replace real device testing.

Device Testing

While getting access to devices, networks and the right data plans is a challenge,

the outcome is worth the struggle.

Other methods of testing are very useful, but nothing represents the final

experience better than testing on a real mobile device during the development

process, since this best recreates how the user will interact with your site.

If you have only one device, borrow phones from friends and family. Talk to

vendors that may let you rent phones or use their device lab. If you don’t have

access to a vendor in your area, try going to a mobile service provider store and

use the display phones for testing.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 72

Prepaid SIM cards from multiple mobile service provider networks can be a

developer’s best friend. Switching prepaid SIMs allows you to test on multiple

devices across multiple networks, without having to commit to multiple contracts

with mobile operators.

Remote Access

Remote access services let you control an actual device remotely through your

desktop. DeviceAnywhere is one of the few examples of such a service. The

application taps into the actual device, which you rent through the company’s

software. It supports most of the devices sold in North America and Europe.

Remote access provides a compelling method for testing and has the added

convenience of a desktop emulator as well as showing the displayed

characteristics of the actual device. Although it doesn’t replace the tactile lessons

learned from using the real device, it’s a solution for small publishers with limited

resources. It deals with the problem of testing on many devices some of which

are not supported by networks in their own countries.

Usability Testing

The recommended approach of testing Web sites with users, offers valuable

insight. Testing is a process that should occur throughout the design and

development process rather than being relegated to something to do upon the

site’s completion. Regardless of the site’s size, verifying the discoverability,

readability and usability of the site with actual users always creates a better site.

This is the perfect time to quote Jared Spool’s golden rule of usability testing,

“Testing with one user is better than none.”

References & Resources

DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 73

• Opera Software AG (http://www.opera.com)

• DeviceAnywhere.com (http://www.deviceanywhere.com/)

• Firefox User Agent Switcher

(http://chrispederick.com/work/useragentswitcher/)

• Firefox Web Developers Toolbar

(http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper)

• Firebug (http://www.getfirebug.com)

• dotMobi Online Phone Emulator (http://emulator.mtld.mobi/)

• Nokia Browser Simulator

(http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/db2c69a2-4066-46ff-

81c4-caac8872a7c5/NMB40_install.zip.html)

• Openwave Phone Simulator

(http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/member/downloadManager.htm?softw

areId=23)

• Opera Mini Simulator

(http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/operamini/demo.dml)

• Usable Products (http://www.usableproducts.com)

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 74

9. Going further with Adaptation

The range and diversity of devices on the market today presents a challenge and

an opportunity for the content provider. The challenge: to achieve a workable,

compelling experience across device types requires thought and careful planning.

The opportunity: for content providers to stand out from those who don’t, by

presenting a compelling experience to a broader segment of their target

demographic.

Most of this document focuses on getting the basic things right. This means that

it pays more attention to working down to the limitations of basic devices as

opposed to working up to the capabilities of the growing number of more fully

featured devices. In doing this, dotMobi isn’t implying that it encourages what is

often referred to as a “least common denominator” approach.

A minimal approach has its place when the service targets users who have only

basic devices or where the content is naturally simply structured and navigated.

However, more and more users are adopting devices that come with advanced

features and browsing technologies. Users in some markets who have

experienced the Web on desktops have become accustomed to sophisticated

experiences. Thus, more manufacturers and software vendors in the mobile space

are building capabilities into their devices to meet those expectations.

Your job, as a content provider, is to exploit those capabilities to provide users

with the best possible experience when using your service. In this chapter, we

look at adaptation, which - broadly speaking - is the process of selecting and

formatting content differently based on the differences in device types and

circumstances of use.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 75

User Choice

In chapter 2 we discuss how converting your desktop-based site to a miniature

one for mobile users is not the right approach. This not only refers to the different

capabilities of the users’ devices, but also to the users’ usually different needs

when sitting at a desk compared to using a mobile device.

Throughout this guide, we have emphasized anticipating your users’ interests

while they’re mobile and making it as easy as possible for them to reach the

needed content. While this is an important rule of thumb, taking advanced steps

in creating a mobile experience requires slightly reconsidering the rule of thumb.

Crucially, when we say “usually different,” there are nonetheless some cases

where some users may have particular reasons for accessing content usually

associated with access from the desktop.

For example, lengthy research reports are, for most people, hard to read on a

mobile device. When planning your site, you would not make access to such

reports a priority. However, some users, because they need the information and

do not have access to a more appropriate device may wish to access the report

anyway. Some users in various demographics may not have access to a desktop

experience at all.

For these and other reasons, devices coming into the market today anticipate

that users, for whatever reason, may wish to access ‘the desktop experience’

while mobile.

It remains true that typical mobile devices cannot present a full desktop

experience, as the size of the screen and more importantly, the lack of a full
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 76

keyboard and pointing device remain obstacles to text input and typical desktop

navigation.

That said, it is important that in spite of anticipating users’ common needs in

your mobile experience, you do not prevent them from accessing aspects of your

content designed primarily for the desktop experience.

While you should anticipate users’ needs and provide them with what you think

is an appropriate experience by default, you should allow them to over-ride your

assumptions.

Include a link to the mobile experience on the desktop experience and include a

link to the desktop experience on the mobile experience.

What Is Adaptation?

In earlier chapters we mention that the mobile space has a range of device types

and content often renders better when tailored to specific device characteristics

or features. Adaptation is about exploiting those features where they exist, while

avoiding them in others. Another part of adaptation requires working around

problems found in specific devices.

Adaptation can occur at the server or at the client side (the device). It’s also

possible for adaptation to take place in the network, and operators frequently do

some adaptation between your Web site and the device. However, that form of

adaptation is usually outside of your control.

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Client Side Adaptation

Client side adaptation usually relies on using the media selectors associated with

CSS. Stylesheets can provide a different experience for the same page on mobile

by using the ‘handheld’ media type.

While this can be a useful form of adaptation, it is limited. The mobile

downloads the same XHTML markup as a desktop browser, which might

unnecessarily taking time and cost the user money with content that’s ends up

not being displayed.

To include different mobile and desktop stylesheets in your document, add link

elements like the following:

<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />

<link href="mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
media="handheld" />

Alternatively, screen and handheld styles can appear in the same style sheet,

using the @media CSS rule.

For example, if you wanted to suppress the display of an image in the mobile

presentation, identify the image element using the id attribute (calling it

‘image1’), and then refer to it within the style sheet:

@media handheld {#image1

{display: none}}

Note that most browsers will still download the image, and users will suffer the

delay and cost of doing this. So client side adaptation with CSS is mainly useful

when varying the presentation style, or order of the content.

Scripting is another technique for client side adaptation. In the desktop world

scripting is often used to accommodate differences between browsers. However,

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 78

on mobile be especially care because as noted elsewhere in this document, low-

end devices often include no or limited support for scripts. But for high end

devices—where you know the device capabilities—this can be a handy

technique.

Server Side Adaptation

Server side adaptation comes in various forms. At its simplest, it relates to using

scripting to vary small parts of the page delivery. One example is changing the

HTTP Content-Type header attached to the content. As previously discussed, it’s

not typical to use the content type text/html when delivering to mobile

devices. On the other hand, when delivering such pages to some versions of

Internet Explorer on the desktop, it can be more effective to use that content

type. In this example, the adaptation would consist of a test to see which User

Agent (browser) accesses the page and deliver the chosen header based on

whether the browser is Internet Explorer or not.

The following is a simple (and incomplete) example of how to do this in the

server side scripting language PHP:

<?php
$msie = strpos($_SERVER[“HTTP_USER_AGENT”],’MSIE’) > 0;
if (!$msie) {
header(“Content-Type:
application/xhtml+xml;
charset=UTF-8”);}
else {
header(“Content-Type: text/html;
charset=UTF-8”);}
?>

Other examples of varying the content to better suit device characteristics include

presenting an appropriately sized image for the device accessing the page. A

good general guidance for low-end devices is to limit images to 120px width.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 79

Those with high-end devices will have a much better experience if the image fits

their screen and its color depth.

Because it wastes bandwidth to transfer images that are bigger than the screen

can handle, it’s good practice to resize images at the server prior to transmission.

Do this by preparing specifically sized images in advance and choosing the

biggest size that will fit; or dynamically resize the image at the point of delivery.

Both approaches have advantages: The former is better when the image must

preserve specific details (e.g. the ball in a sports photo). The advantage of

dynamic resizing is its ability to fit an image exactly to the device.

Device Detection and Characteristics

To be able to resize images and carry out other kinds of adaptation requires that

you know the characteristics of the devices.

Most devices (desktop and mobile) send information about the content formats

and character encodings they support, but they usually don’t provide enough

details for a particular application. Some, but not many, devices present some

information as non-standard HTTP headers. But in any In any case, it’s

impractical for devices to send all the information that is needed for adaptation in

their headers.

The answer is a database of information known as a Device Description

Repository. Currently, the standards world is doing a lot of work on this subject.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 80

The W3C and OMA are working together to create a standard framework for

storing useful information with dotMobi actively participating because of its

importance to the Mobile Web.

In the meantime, other solutions exist for finding out device characteristics.

One of the better known is WURFL. This open source project maintains and

updates a range of information about a multitude of devices. There are APIs

which help you access this information from server side scripting.

Another source is the OMA-inspired UAPROF. UAPROF puts an additional

header in the HTTP request containing the URL of a file with information about

the requesting device. If it hasn’t got the file already, the server can find this URL

and request the information about the device.

Several companies provide commercial services around Device Descriptions.

Mobile Wizards, for example, has collected thousands of UAProfiles and offers

free and fee-based services for this information.

Other companies like Volantis, MobileAware, SevenVal, Drutt and Argogroup offer

value-added services, including specialist online adaptation services.

Adaptation Strategies

Many adaptation strategies exist, but the one you choose depends on the nature

of your content and budget. Such strategies include the following:

• One Size Fits All

• Minor Adaptation e.g. scaling pictures to screen size

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 81

• Redirection

• Unified

One Size Fits All

Sites with simple navigational structures can be designed so that they render well

on both mobile and desktop devices. In the right circumstances, using a simple

direct approach provides the most compelling experience across device types.

Minor Adaptation

An embellishment of the One Size Fits All approach, detecting device capabilities

allows you to take advantage of advanced device features, to present better

quality images and to include extra features for devices that you know support

them.

Redirection

Sites that are more complex are harder to build in a way that makes that every

page works well on different device types. This is especially so when the desktop

experience has a more complex navigation. Additionally, navigation that designed

with mobile user needs in mind can prioritize different aspects of the site and its

content than the desktop experience and so make it easier for mobile users to

reach content that is important to them.

One solution to this problem is to build a separate mobile site, which could

potentially also include minor adaptation to take advantage of enhanced device

features. In essence, this approach means that when devices access the home

page, the server assesses whether the device is mobile or not.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 82

To do this, the server reviews the User Agent HTTP header and compares the

string with a list (such as the one provided by WURFL). There are other clues in

the HTTP headers that help you determine if it’s a mobile device. Such clues

include the presence of a UAPROF, or the device reporting that it supports WAP

content types, but beware they’re not 100% accurate. Note that a dotMobi site

should default to the mobile version of the page if the device is not recognized.

Having determined which experience is appropriate for the device in question,

the server sends an HTTP 301 or 302 response containing the URL of the right

page such as http://mobile.example.mobi or http://example.mobi/mobile.

The major drawback of this approach is that it separates the mobile content into

an area of its own, making it hard to share bookmarks between mobile and

desktop devices. It also makes it hard for mobile users to reach the desktop

experience if they want or need to.

Another problem is that some more fully featured devices and some versions of

Opera Mini (an adaptation solution) try to emulate desktop user agents in order

not to route to the mobile experience, which can make it hard for mobile users to

reach the mobile experience.

At a minimum, both the desktop-oriented and the mobile-oriented home page

should link to the other experience to allow users to choose an alternative, and

provide a backup in case device detection has incorrectly determined the device

type.

In summary, this approach is probably best considered a temporary solution.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 83

Unified

A unified approach attempts to address the drawbacks of the redirection

approach by overlaying the URLs that apply to the various experiences onto each

other. This way, bookmarks can be shared between the desktop and mobile.

Pages that don’t apply to one experience can redirect to pages that do apply.

This approach needs more planning and expertise than the others do, but it

ultimately leads to more satisfactory user experiences and repeat visits to your

site.

Various companies, including those aforementioned specialize in helping content

providers with tools and services for implementing a complete adaptation

approach.

Remember

Your assumptions about mobile user context (what they may need or the way

they wish to experience it) should guide the design of the default mobile

experience. However, do not prevent users from accessing content because of

those assumptions, and allow them to choose a different experience. Their device

may have been specifically designed to display desktop Web pages, so allow

them to access such pages if they want to.

References and Resources

• WURFL (http://wurfl.sourceforge.net)

• Mobile Wizards (http://www.uaprofile.com)

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 84

Appendix A: Creating a Mobile-

Friendly Site using only Stylesheets

Web sites coded with “Best Practices” in mind (Semantically-coded XHTML/CSS-

based design without tables for layout) adapt to mobile devices much more easily

than those that are not. Lists placed at the top for navigation, header elements

properly providing context to the content and non-use of tables make it possible

for the mobile user to read and use the site, often with few changes to code.

The reality is that it can take as little as adding only one line of code on desktop

Web page to make it format in a mobile friendly way. Just apply a handheld

media type for displaying the mobile stylesheet to the well-formed XHTML

markup and the site turns into a site for mobile browsers.

The one line of code that often appears in XHTML documents is the following:

<link href="mainstyles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

This loads an external file called “mainstyles.css” containing the site’s styles and

applies it to the XHTML document. It loads the same stylesheet regardless of

device type. To specify that only desktop Web browsers should use this

stylesheet, just add “media=screen” as shown in the following example:

<link href="mainstyles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"

media="screen" />

Since you’re adding several stylesheets to a document, for clarity, name each

stylesheet after the medium it’s intended for. Start by renaming “mainstyles.css”

to “screen.css” as in the next example:

<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 85

Now add the mobile stylesheet, using the “handheld” media attribute:

<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />

<link href="mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld"
/>

When specifying different media types as shown in the next example, the

browser conditionally loads the stylesheet designed for its medium. Desktop Web

browsers, for example, use the screen stylesheet. When the user prints the page,

however, the browser switches to the print stylesheet. The real magic happens

when you load the same page on a mobile device. Recent Web browsers load the

handheld stylesheet, styling the content specifically for the small screen.

<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />

<link href="mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld"
/>
<link href="print.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" />

Using only one line of code, you gain the ability to transform your markup for

mobile devices. (Of course, you still have the task of creating the mobile

stylesheet.)

Warning

This technique can only do so much. It can’t handle complex design using just

CSS and it can’t remove large images using advanced techniques like image

replacement.

File sizes of pages designed for bigger screens are significantly larger, so CSS

needs to hide extraneous elements like headers and sidebars. While this

improves the content’s readability, the user’s device still downloads the hidden

content. The user pays for every kilobyte including the hidden content’s bits.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 86

More importantly, this technique doesn’t affect the mobile context in terms of

providing information that’s relevant to the users’ physical location or mobility.

Nonetheless, this provides an acceptable solution for those with well-coded Web

sites who simply want to publish simple content and have it display well on

mobile devices.

Part II of this guide will address more sophisticated method of publishing content

including adaptation techniques to customize the content to the requesting

device.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 87

Glossary
accesskey

An access key allows a browser user to immediately jump to a specific part of a

Web page via the keyboard. In most Web browsers, the user does this by

pressing ALT (PC) or CTRL (Mac) followed by the appropriate character on the

keyboard. On mobile phone this can typically be accomplished by pressing a

numeric key directly.

ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)

Term regularly used in the mobile industry to describe the total revenue earned

from voice, messaging, data or other activity per user or subscriber.

BREW®

Proprietary mobile device platform developed by Qualcomm. BREW® provides

the richest mobile user interface that is widely available. All applications

designed for the BREW® platform must pass National Software Testing Labs in

order to made available on Carrier decks

First-tier carrier Verizon utilizes the BREW® platform in all their handsets.

Several second-tier carriers also use BREW®.

Carrier

North American term used to refer to a mobile telecommunications company or

their network (referred to as Operators elsewhere in the world).

cHTML
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 88

cHTML is a proprietary markup language based on HTML used by NTT DoCoMo

in Japan and other countries. cHTML was the primary markup language of the i-

Mode service

Clickstream

Used to refer to the series of clicks, or path, the user takes to reach a destination

in an informational space. Often used to describe user behavior gathered from

server logs, but also can be used in early planning, as in “creating the optimal

clickstream.”

Carrier Deck

Refers to the Web presence maintained by each carrier. When you access the

Internet from a mobile device, the first page you see is often referred to as the

carrier deck, but will also be used to describe all online carrier services that a

user interacts with.

Deck Placement

The term used to describe where a third-party vendor WAP site, or application

will appear on the Carrier Deck. Default order on content on most Carrier Decks

is determined by sales. New items often have temporary “Top-Deck Placement”

The Catch-22 is due to the constrained screen size, the items that show at the

top tend to have the highest sales. The items at the bottom see very little user

attention.

Device Manufacturer

The term used to describe the manufacturers that make mobile devices, such as

Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc.

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 89

i-Mode

i-Mode is the name given to NTT DoCoMo’s Mobile Web service. This service

was originally offered in Japan only but has now spread to several other

countries.

Information Architecture (IA)

Term used to describe the discipline of creating an informational space. The

discipline has its roots in Library Sciences, but has evolved to include many other

forms of information. IA is a critical element of mobile design and often a carrier

requirement.

J2ME (Java 2 Platform Micro Edition)

J2ME is mobile device platform based on a stripped-down implementation of

Java.

Paper Prototype

The process of taking printed or sketched wire-frames and presenting them to a

user asking them to perform a series of tasks. The facilitator acts as the

“computer” changing the pages as the user makes selections.

Paper Prototyping is an excellent method of doing early usability testing for

mobile interfaces.

Premium SMS

Premium SMS is a method of charging mobile-consumers for content delivered

via SMS

Premium SMS messages can be mobile originated (MO) or mobile terminated

(MT) depending on the server. With MO messages, the consumer is charged on

 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 90

sending the message, with MT messages the consumer is charged on receipt of

the message. In many countries around the world there is a controlled system of

numbering so that users can be aware of the cost of PSMS messages before they

send them e.g. 7XXXX might indicated a high cost message, 1XXXX may be the

minimum band.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

A format widely used in the weblog space for syndication of content. RSS has

several types of formats, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and all of them are basic XML

documents.

RSS strips presentation from content allowing publishers to reformat content for

other purposes. Generally used for newsreaders or RSS aggregators, but can also

be used to create mobile versions of Web content.

SMS (Short Messaging Service)

Broadcast messaging system that allows for subscriber to subscriber text based

communications. Analogous to instant messaging.

Subscribers

Term used by carriers to describe a wireless customer. Subscribers is the correct

term to use when referring to users in any communication that could be seen by

carriers.

Walled Garden

This is a term used to describe a service (typically a Web portal) that users are

either prevented from leaving or encouraged not to leave through obfuscation or

financial incentives.
 DotMobi Web Developer’s Guide 91

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

The W3C develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines,

software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for

information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding.

XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language)

XHTML is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML,

but a stricter syntax. Whereas HTML is an application of SGML, a very flexible

markup language, XHTML is an application of XML, a more restrictive subset of

SGML.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

Wireless Application Protocol or WAP is a standard for applications that use

wireless communication. Its principal application is to enable access to the

Internet from a mobile phone or PDA.