Mobile Website Design
The Internet comes in a small package today. You will see that the web pages, when accessed through your mobile phones appear all jumbled up. The experience of surfing through the web is not the same as viewed through your laptop, net-book or web-site. Navigation as well viewing becomes difficult. This necessitates the use of Mobile Web Design.
Why mobile website designing at all?
With people getting very busy every passing day, and the mobile being updated every moment, the net is the only thing that remains behind. Sounds strange? The mobile browser mostly does not support the actual version of websites. Even the smart-phones are not smart enough. Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and even Nokia cannot support the existing web-page. The websites therefore must be mobile friendly and need to be made into a mobile version.
30% of the mobile phone users surf the internet daily and they require a mobile version of the websites, which not only shall appear organized but also run smoother.
This makes way for the new generation Internet platform.
Creating a mobile optimized website requires steady and dedicated working.
How to make a Mobile Website Design?
The first point to be kept in mind while designing mobile website, is that mobile website designing requires different configuration from computer web browsers.
W3C guidelines define the mobile website design. Mobile browsers use the WAP technology, and because of the limitations of screen size and download, the current design needs a thorough makeover.
Modifying the existing Internet site to make it compatible for mobile handsets is the easiest thing one can do to build a mobile website.
Points to be kept in mind before designing a Mobile Website:
- The site to be used for mobile compatibility must utilize CSS for its layout.
- Websites that use tables for layout are not suitable for mobile website designs.
- XHTML or XML coding, with character encoding at UTF-8 is the best suited for your site.
- Another major point to be remembered is that different mobile phones have different dimensions for screen; therefore it is difficult to design mobile websites to run perfectly on all of them.
- Texting being difficult in mobile websites, you can offer your users to choose from a list of radio buttons.
- The most important information must be kept on top. Browsing through a web site is a strenuous job and the mobile website must be made convenient to the user.
- Images put in the mobile website must be in the jpg and gif format.
- The maximum page size in a mobile website must be 20 kilobytes in size and must be fitted into that.
- Back buttons and links only make a mobile website more convenient.
- It is important to keep in mind that the mobile website users are getting their money’s worth.
- Websites on mobiles can be created using WAP or WML language.
WML or Wireless Markup Language is considered a light version of HTML, but supports limited features and tags.