Mobile Design

Mobile Design Update

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:30:09 -0800

Anyone that has been following mobiledesign.org over the years knows I have had a tough time keeping it up to date. My goal has always been to have it be a community site, with little success.

I hope (for the third time) that I will change the tide.

First, I’m pleased to let you know that I’m writing a book for O’Reilly, entitled Mobile Design & Development. The book will take a lot of my energy to do right, but it also gives me an opportunity to focus on mobiledesign.org like never before.

Second, I’m working on creating a new open-source community resource. I’m using it to collect my research already, but I have grander dreams for it. I hope to release it soon.

Third, I’m currently alpha testing a new site that gathers news and information in and around the mobile space. Based on how the alpha goes, I hope to do a public beta later this week.

I have even more plans for Mobile Design, but I’ll just take it three steps at a time for now. Stay tuned and let me know what you think (or if you can help!).

Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:44:54 -0700

Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):

This document highlights the differences between the WCAG and the W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices.

While a bit short of useful information it references several interesting W3C documents and gives some insight into how these various W3C initiatives will eventually come together.

WWDC Keynote Live

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 05:56:12 -0700

WWDC Keynote Live:

I will be providing live updates to the WWDC Keynote this morning at 10 AM Pacific.

http://wwdc.flingmedia.com

Opera's Mobile Browsing Report

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:31:17 -0700

Opera's Mobile Browsing Report:

Opera has released a Mobile Browsing Report chock full for interesting data nuggets about mobile browsing, including growth in Opera’s usage, user content preferences as well as top sites per country.

From the report:

Traffic to social networks comprise almost 40% of the mobile Web according to our “State of the Mobile Web” report, published today. The results both show healthy growth in the numbers of consumers accessing the Web from their mobile devices and provide insight into aggregate consumer preferences when browsing from their phones.

Android vs. LiMo: What’s the difference?

Thu, 15 May 2008 08:37:19 -0700

Android vs. LiMo: What’s the difference?:

Curious about Android? Curious about LiMo? Never heard of LiMo? Here is a great overview of the two mobile platforms that will likely debut this year.

If those developing the device are looking to start with a complete software solution, they’d probably go with Android. If they’re looking to write their user experience layer from scratch, they’d go with LiMo.

Monetizing the Mobile Web

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:52:10 -0700

Monetizing the Mobile Web:

Some great slides were posted from this weeks Mobile Monday London event. Several presentations contain some fantastic metrics and case studies on the benefits of mobile advertising.

W3C Mobile Web Test

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:23:54 -0700

W3C Mobile Web Test:

I’m glad to see that someone finally put this together. Though I think that the test greatly misses the mark to providing designers and developers with a helpful tool for testing the capabilities of WAP 2.0 browsers.

For example, of all the CSS2 tests to run, min-width would probably be the last I would run. What about just seeing if the browser supports the Cascade of Cascading Stylesheets.

This test seems to be targeting the capabilities common of desktop grade browsers. And if that is the case, why not just run the ACID2 test?

From the BBC: Does Size Matter?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:53:40 -0700

From the BBC: Does Size Matter?:

Ashley Highfield of the BBC asks, “do people want to consume a lot of information on a 3”x2” screen?”

Good question. I think so. If it is context to what they are doing, or adds value to the moment, then people will go to incredible lengths and overcome significant hurdles to access content that helps them in that instant. In that instant, size does not matter, the information does.

But Ashley continues to ask “But if the tide is starting to turn to mobile-IP, what devices will win? Mobile phone, e-readers, £100 Linux laptops, or full blown notebooks?”

Yes, all of the above. I don’t think it will be one device, but a few devices that add to value to our lives. Of course, we will always have our phone on us, so that seems like as good a place as any to start.

Speakers for Design for Mobile Conference

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:30:38 -0700

Speakers for Design for Mobile Conference:

The first round of speakers have been announced for Design for Mobile conference in Lawrence, Kansas. Should be a great few days!

Here are my slides from last weeks Over the Air event. Never...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:20:25 -0700

Here are my slides from last weeks Over the Air event.

Never one to shy way from a huge slide count, I tried to pack as much information about basic mobile design principles as well as iPhone site, web app and native app information as I possibly could into both of my hour long iPhone sessions. Feel free to use any of these slides.

I have several workshops and presentations coming up, so come out and say hello if you can.

via flingLog (yes, I know I’m rebloging my own post)

A great roundtable discussion on state and challenges of the...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:49:41 -0700

A great roundtable discussion on state and challenges of the Mobile User Experience from last weeks Over the Air event in London.

Part Two of the discussion is here.

via Mark Kramer

The Return of Mobile Design

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 07:24:47 -0700

Today I’m pleased to finally bring back mobiledesign.org!

I started Mobile Design back in 2005 as a way for the mobile design community to connect. The original idea was to create a site where the community submitted articles to be shared with all. The problem was that the mobile design community at that time ended up being a lot smaller than I thought.

I tried to add as many articles as I could myself, some of which actually seemed to pick up a lot of interest, but after a server mishap I lost the CMS database. I was able to recover the articles, but after that I never was able to get the site back up to what it once was.

Inspired by the Mobile Monday discussion list, in March of 2006 I created the Mobile Design list, which has grown steadily over the years to become one of the largest communities of mobile designers in the world. It has become a great resource for the community to share ideas, solve problems, and connect with others in the mobile space.

Even as the community grew to become a resource in its own, I wanted to bring back the site with news, articles, events and more. For the past year it has been a goal of mine, but finding the time I needed kept alluding me.

Then two things happened, first is I feel love with Tumblr, which is not only easy to contribute content like links and resources with additional contributers, but it also allows me to import articles that myself or others write elsewhere, like on my blog, or my new company site. The second is that I decided to leave the agency I co-founded in 2005 and reboot my consultancy Fling Media.

My goal is to be able to spend more time writing in general and hopefully in the process will be able to keep Mobile Design a thriving part of the mobile community. For this initial phase I’m just adding the tumblelog, I hope to add more contributors over the next few weeks. The second phase will be adding back articles, tutorials and other resources for those looking to plunge into mobile design.

If you have ideas of would like contribute or participate, just drop us a line.

-Brian