The "One web" discussion for mobiles.

10-04-2009 12:50:10 Scriptie, Afstudeerstage

The best thing about the discussion that is going, "mobile websites and the one web", is the fact that we are thinking about it. What should we do? "The one web" is more a dream then a reality for me. As long as standards are not followed by all browser manufactures it will never happen. Walled garden sites is what we as web developers make with all websites. IE6 or 7 websites may look the same but have extra coding to making them look the same.

"The visitor should be able to chose what websites he wants. A mobile version or the full version."

scenario 1

I'm a mother of 2, aged 34 and live in France. I'm not well informed of the web let alone on the mobile web. Tomorrow is a national holiday and the shops are closing early tonight. I'm coming home from work and want to find out until what time the shops are open. I access the mobile web on my regular phone with GPRS connection. The question comes to mind... Do I want the full one web experience or do I want a very simplified website almost only text based?" I would think the last, but she should have the choice! When she is home behind her new computer with windows vista and ie7 does she want the text only based website? Or does she want to be able to see what product are available and maybe do some shopping from home, because she doesn't have the time to go shopping that evening? And maybe she want to print a recipe? Something I cant do on my mobile phone....

scenario 2

I'm a Dutch male, 26, I have a high-end mobile, flat-fee internet. Almost everywhere I go there is wifi or else 3g connections available. I know a lot about the web and mobile web. I design and develop websites even for mobile. It's Sunday eastern and I forgot to do some shopping, something I figured out the moment I open my frig. Time to find out if the shops are open. Start my browser, type in the url of a supermarket and start browsing. Now I know the supermarket desktop website by hart. "I'm a fanatic cook if I'm not behind the computer commenting on posts". What is see on my phone browser is the same as what is see on my desktop browser. I find out by scrolling, zooming and lots of clicking that the the shop is open until 15:00. After shopping I'm standing in the shop ready to get my stuff. I'm trying to find a recipe on the same website. But there are so many and I'm on the 3g network and connection is a bit slow here. Making a choice on what to cook. There are hundreds of recipe's on the website. And it isn't easy to working the paging inside the browser and selecting the different categories from which I want to chose. I don't want to stand 5 minutes in the shop looking for a recipe, I feel like a nerd in this context. I would like to have the choice for a quicker loading website with big buttons and easy paging by flicking the screens.

As you can see, 2 totally different scenarios and persona's with 2 totally different needs. Which leads to different solutions By the choice of the user.

I think you could even go so far that you should make 2 or 3 different mobile site designs for the different mobile classes. Regular=phone website / smart-phone website and a high-end-phone website. And of course your desktop website, accessible on mobile and other web-browsing devices.

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