258 million mobile broadband users around the world by 2014, according to a forecast by Ovum. That’s just laptop users; Ovum predicts that phones with 3G technology or better will be in 2 billion pockets.

There is only one web, the principle of making the same information and services to users regardless of the way they access it. No doubt about it, the number of mobile devices we choose to interact with websites and online applications is increasing, comared to just desktop computers. Mobile will revolutionise they way we gather and intereact with information in the next 2 years, and this is using the mobile in your pocket, not just the iPhone.

Compare the number of global mobile owners, more than 3 billion, to the number of computer owners, 850 million. The mobile is something you don’t leave home without, why leave the web at home or at work? It is predicted that the in the next decade the mobile will be the first point of contact with the internet, and the desktop computer the second.

According to a new report from the telecom research firm Berg Insight, more than 100 million mobile subscribers in Europe will use location-based services by 2012. Mapping, navigation and search are believed to become the top applications, followed by social networking and tracking.
GPS is about to become a standard feature in mass-market handsets which are highly advanced and support third party applications. Many will try and a few players will most likely succeed in creating location-enabled mobile applications that will have the same impact on the mobile industry as MySpace and Facebook had on the Internet.

Now we have mobile versions of the BBC (bbc.co.uk/mobile), Facebook (m.facebook.com) and ebay. These are stripped down versions of the main sites. As when on the move you only want to know the headlines, get to pages quickly without having to wait for long downloads, this is possible as image use is limited and page widths are flexible so it will fit to deliver main content and basic navigation to whatever size screen you are using.

Mobile applications have real value for people on the move, for example, in the last few weeks I’ve used the internet on my mobile using Google Maps (google.com/m/products) to direct me to a hotel in Edinburgh from the Railway station, or if i have forgotten to send an important email I just visit webmail on my mobile to forward it to a colleague or client.

To improve your mobile experience I recommend you download OperaMini (operamini.com), it’s free, easy to install, packed with great features.

These are exciting time for how we interact with the internet. it’s early days, the mobile operators have the networks in place, its down to individual web companies and web innovators to create projects that capture the possibilities of the mobile internet. First there must be a critical mass of active users to work with, come and experience what the mobile web can do for you!

Vodafone: 191 million customer worldwide, and member of w3c mobile working group

Do users want the web on their mobile?

The answer is yes, due to:

1. The largest uptake of mobile web content in africa and developing countries
2. Creation of worldwide mobile web initiative

Leading to the mobile web best practices – which focus on the following:

1. designing for one web
2. rely on web standards
3. stay away from known hazards
4. be cautious of device implications
5. optimise navigation
6. check graphics and colors
7. keep it small (file size)
8. use the network sparingly
9. help and guide user input
10. think of users on the go > stripped down version, interaction design

These are the current best practice details for mobile content creation.

Mobile web 2.0

1. transition of mobile apps to an internet model mobile web and connected apps
2. user choice
3. leverage open standards
4. more interactive mobile apps running in the browsers

Further resources
www.w3c.org/2005/mwi/bpwg/techs > wiki with info about the mobile web
dev.mobi > venture between nokia, aol and microsoft > developer resources and forum

http://www.cached.it/english/Pda-Simulator.php

http://www.google.com/xhtml

Why dont you try it on our sites to see how accessible, and easy they are to read. Or test it on your own favourite site.

• Always use features of the markup designed to support alternate rendering such as the longdesc and alt attributes in XHTML.
• Use only features from the markup that are known to be supported by the device in question.
• Avoid things like CSS image replacement and pictures of words.

Valid Markup

• If the page markup is invalid this will result in unpredictable and possibly incomplete presentation.
• Use percentage and relative measures such as em, ex, bolder, larger and thick.

Style sheets

• Style information may be contained in an externally linked style sheet or, in HTML, may be contained either in a style element or in a style attribute on specific elements.
• Mobile Devices offer varying support for style sheets. Some provide full implementations, including caching of external style sheets; some do not cache external style sheets; some do not support the style element; some implementations do not support more than one style sheet and some do not support style sheets at all.

URIs of site entry points

• When accessing site entry points users should not have to enter a filename as part of the URI. If possible, configure Web sites so that they can be accessed without having to specify a sub-domain as part of the URI.

Example: Instead of requiring users to type

“http://www.example.org/index.html” allow “http://example.org”

and instead of

“www.example.org/example.html” allow “example.org/example”

Refreshing, Redirection and Spawned Windows

• Do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user.
• Do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages, unless you have informed the user and provided a means of stopping it.
• Do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects by means of HTTP 3xx codes.
• Each of these activities is likely to cause the user confusion, or add cost and delay to their interaction.
• Some mobile devices use a separate window for input; this section does not refer to such windows.
• Many mobile devices cannot support more than one window and consequently, attempting to open one will have unpredictable results.
• Auto-refreshing pages are widely recognized as presenting accessibility problems. In a mobile environment they may expose the user to undue cost as a result of such a page being left open or put unnoticed into the background. If an auto-refreshing page is demanded by the application, always provide a means of ceasing the refresh and always inform the user that the page will refresh and may expose them to higher usage costs.
• While redirection is a commonly employed mechanism, it must be remembered that redirection usually requires a round-trip to the browser. This adds to delay on slow links; so use a maximum of one redirect per page and limit the number of pages that are redirected.

Balanced Structure

• Take into account the trade-off between having too many links on a page and asking the user to follow too many links to reach what they are looking for.
• The design should aim to provide a balance between having a large number of navigation links on a page and the need to navigate multiple links to reach content.

Navigation Mechanisms

• Provide consistent navigation mechanisms.
• Using the same navigation mechanisms across a service helps users orient themselves and allows them to identify navigation mechanisms more easily.
• Users of devices that do not have pointing devices have to scroll between hyperlinks using the keypad. Intelligent grouping, perhaps optimized through adaptation according to usage patterns, can assist usability.

Access Keys

• Assign access keys to links in navigational menus and frequently accessed functionality.
• Where there is no pointing device, assigning an access key (keyboard short cut) to a link can provide a convenient way for users to access the link and avoid navigating to the link by repeated pressing of the navigation key.
• Provide the same access key for links that are repeated across pages such as links to the home page.

Character encoding

• The character encoding being used in a response may be indicated using the HTTP Content-Type header.

Example:
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8

This popularity largely stems at present from them being:

• personal
• personalizable
• portable
• connected
• and increasingly multi-functional beyond their original purpose of voice communications.

In addition to these factors, the advantages of mobile devices will increasingly
include:

• location awareness
• one-handed operation
• always on
• universal alerting device

By way of illustration of some of these factors: the Web can go where you go. You do not have to remember to do something on the Web when you get back to your computer. You can do it immediately, within the context that made you want to use the Web in the first place.

Moreover, with mobile devices appearing in all shapes and forms, and with a growing variety of features like location technology, cameras, voice recognition, touch screens etc, the Web can reach a much wider audience, and at all times in all situations. It has the opportunity to reach into places where wires cannot go, to places previously unthinkable (e.g. providing medical info to mountain rescue scenes) and to accompany everyone as easily as they carry the time on their wristwatches.

Finally, today, many more people have access to mobile devices than access to a desktop computer. This is likely to be very significant in developing countries, where Web-capable mobile devices may play as similar a role in deploying wide-spread Web access as the mobile phone has played for providing “plain old telephone service”.