W3C

Editor's Corner

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Mobile Web revisited
It looks like I hit a nerve with my column on mobile web standards. I don't think I can succinctly summarize all the comments I've received via email and on FierceDeveloper.com, but suffice to say that building mobile websites is a tough business and lots of very smart people disagree about the right approach.

I admit that I may have painted the Web standards debate with a broad brush, but that's because I don't think its worthwhile to argue the minutia of, say, whether or not mobile Web sites should use tables for layout. That's something that each author must decide for himself or herself. And, really, that's the point I was trying to make. There is no One True Way for delivering content over the Web and no universal standard to fall back on. The best advice I can give to developers is to read all the specification documents, read all the best practices, and test obsessively in as many different browsers as possible.

The idea of a device-independent "One Web" is an excellent, worthy goal, but in some ways I do believe it is Utopian (and GAP author Luca Passani and I aren't the only ones who think so). Generating 100% standards-compliant XHTML without browser adaptation is tough on the desktop and really tough when you factor in mobile browsers. As Jason Delport recently wrote, "the only sane choice for small development houses like ours is to follow what each group are saying, contribute wherever possible but ultimately stay loyal only to the end user... My more important concern should be that the code actually works, today, and in as many browsers as possible." Nobody wants a "content soup" solution, but if that's what works best today, it's certainly a valid option. - Eli

Useful mobile Web Developer resources:

Guidelines and how-tos: W3C, Opera, dotMobi (pdf), GAP
Document verification tools: ready.mobi, TAW mobileOK
Misc. resources: Opera Mini in-browser simulator, WURFL

Editor's Corner

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Mobile Web best practices battle it out
Creating web content for mobile devices is tough work. dotMobi, the registrar for mobile-only .mobi domains, just made it a little easier by publicly releasing its Mobile Web Developer's Guide (pdf) to the public. The guide explains how to meet the minimum requirements for a .mobi domain (namely that content be served as XHTML-MP by default) along with a large set of best practices and an overview of some of the varied approaches to the mobile Web. The dotMobi guide is impressive and was clearly written by someone who has been in the trenches (Brian Fling of Blue Flavor), but in some ways yet another set of best practices is the last thing designers need.

The W3C's Mobile Web Initiative Best Practices is the benchmark guide, but many developers feel it is an impractical and Utopian vision of "One Web" that can be accessed by any device. To quote Luca Passani, a maintainer of the venerable WURFL device capabilities database, "I understand that W3C is all about the web and some may dream about a unified web which can be accessed with equal ease by PCs and mobile devices, but this is just a dream: web and mobile will remain separate media for many many years to come (probably more)."

In response, Luca has created Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web (GAP), which purports to be the only independent alternative to the W3C's guide. Some of the general advice is similar, but GAP differs vastly from the W3C when it comes to nuts and bolts. While the W3C recommends creating pages as XHTML 1.1 Basic, a standard with mixed support on today's mobile devices, GAP (like dotMobi) recommends XHTML-MP, the de facto standard. GAP also focuses on adaptation--customizing pages for the specific device making the request--rather than risk locking out low-end handsets or being forced to design for only the least common denominator.

Now what's the best practice on choosing a set of best practices? For desktop Web designers the choice is largely philosophical. To borrow some terms from English grammarians, it's a split between the prescriptivists, who want to do it "the right way" with clean, 100 percent standards-compliant markup, and the descriptivists, who believe in markup that works and that designing inclusively is more important than conforming to a spec. On the mobile Web, unfortunately, there doesn't even seem to be a "correct" markup specification, and differences between browsers are so vast that an XML database is needed to keep track of them.

The mobile Web is the Wild West; it's a hostile development environment with no clear rules. But the mobile Web is also full of opportunity. A recent survey revealed that 76 percent of respondents in the U.S. and Europe had access to the mobile Web, but only 32 percent actually use it. Sounds like plenty of room for growth to me. -Eli

W3C launches Planet Mobile Web

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:01:36 -0500

The W3C's Mobile Web Initiative has launched Planet Mobile Web, an aggregator of blog posts from various blogs about the mobile web. Also check out the group's Mobile Web Best Practices checker.

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:01:36 -0400

The W3C has released a new "candidate recommendation" for Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, a basic set of universal guidelines for creating mobile websites. The document has some great advice for all mobile webmasters and mTLD has gone so far as to require that all .mobi domains follow these guidelines.(Interestingly, W3C luminary Tim Berners-Lee was a vocal opponent of the entire .mobi registry.) Guidelines

QUICKLINKS: Nokia's open-source portal; Wendy's goes WiFi; Much more...

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:00:50 -0500

Nokia opens open-source software portal. Web site

Comparing platform numbers: Nokia versus QUALCOMM. Blog

Wendy's fast food restaurants get WiFi. Article

New EV-DO Treos on the horizon. Article

W3C to hold mobile standards conference in London. Article

W3C's mobile Web best practices

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 20:01:33 -0400

The W3C has released a working draft of "Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0." Some of the ideas are pretty obvious, but it's great to have them all in a semi-official document. The W3C is still soliciting public comments for several sections of the document. Incidentally, owners of new .mobi domains will be obligated to follow these coding practices. Paper