Mobile-friendly websites and accessibility
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Following Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox today (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html) looking at the mobile web, discussion has erupted on Twitter.
People are in two minds about whether websites should offer a separate site for mobiles or whether this is unnecessary because current accessibility guidelines cater for device-independent sites (and mobile browsing offers some of the same restrictions that a person with a disability might experience).
I think it depends on the function of the website and the target audience (e.g. corporate vs. consumer) to some degree, which a site that is accessible might not necessarily fulfil. However, I'm not even approaching being an expert on this!
So, what do you think? Do you think that because a site's accessible it will automatically be suitable for browsing via a mobile? Or do you think that some companies might think that providing a separate site for mobiles relieves them of responsibility to create more accessible websites overall?
Thinking of writing a blog post on this, so all opinions received with interest!
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I've blogged my thoughts about this: One Web Works Fine._________________
My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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I think there are certainly use cases when a separate or lighter version of a site may be preferable or desired however on the whole I believe we should work towards one web.
If we don't there is a danger of walled gardens, .mobi sites that lack content that a mobile user may want and deny them choice. It's the choice thing that is key here as many of our users (I work for Opera) complained when Orkut started to force users to the mobile version of a site. People wanted the full web, or at the least to have a choice.
I think Nielsen raises some very good points about the issues we all face on the web and in many ways is correct in saying that the mobile web is much like desktop development in 1998 however disagree that two versions of a website are needed. Clever use of style sheets and media queries can address many of the problems otherwise we're in danger of making familiar mistakes if we go down the road of two versions.
Let the mobile web learn from and not repeat the mistakes of desktop development.
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Blog:www.iheni.com
Web Evangelist Opera and Co-lead of WaSP International liaison Group
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@concisecontent What I also meant to say was that while building an accessible site goes a ways to reinforcing a better experience on a mobile one does not guarantee the other.
W3C have produced a document that shows the overlapping relationship of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Mobile Web Best Practices but think of it more as a venn diagram rather than a direct mapping.
Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
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Blog:www.iheni.com
Web Evangelist Opera and Co-lead of WaSP International liaison Group
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Thanks Ben and iheni. I read your comment on your great blog yesterday, iheni, and it makes a lot of sense (I'm @helenbaker on Twitter).
I've certainly moved on from my initial reaction now that I've read both these posts and am more informed. The use of style sheets to dictate appearance depending on the device seems a very good solution.
Of course, another problem with two websites (from a content perspective) is ensuring that both contain the same information and are updated together. This is also something to avoid wherever possible because it's pretty much guaranteed that something will fall through the gaps on one of them.
Corporates already have difficulties ensuring consistent information (especially dates, figures, etc), throughout one site, nevermind two.
Helen
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Ah ha, so it's you 
| concisecontent wrote: |
|
Of course, another problem with two websites (from a content perspective) is ensuring that both contain the same information and are updated together. This is also something to avoid wherever possible because it's pretty much guaranteed that something will fall through the gaps on one of them. |
This is indeed another reason not to run two sites. This was a problem with text only versions of websites back in the day. I remember Tesco getting a lot of complaints with their text only version as it wasn't equivalent in terms of the information. Tw0-for-one deals and such like were not advertised on the text only version which means locking people out from that content.
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Blog:www.iheni.com
Web Evangelist Opera and Co-lead of WaSP International liaison Group
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I'm desperately trying to get my organisation to realise that mobile browsing is fast becoming very popular, and that we need to design accordingly. Mobile phone penetration is immense in the UK, reaching 100% in 2005 (i.e. one mobile for every person, on average). This near-ubiquity makes them a vital target technology.
I'm definitely against the 'two sites' approach in most instances, and most new and upcoming devices nowadays have decent browsers which render pages just fine anyway, if that's what you're in the market for. For this reason I hate it when I get directed to a Mobile version of a site, often with greatly reduced functionality.
One issue brought back to the fore when building for mobile devices, though, is the need to keep page sizes down. Designers have increasingly been discarding that ethic with the rise of broadband, but we need to keep building lean sites with clean code to help those who are paying by the MB to browse (as well as for all the other reasons)!
Of course, we're also seeing a proliferation of apps designed for mobile devices, often allowing them to bypass the standard websites completely (for example, I have Y! Mobile on my device which pulls in my Yahoo e-mails, weather and news etc, without actually visiting the Yahoo website itself). This is a whole new way of enticing mobile customers to access your site's functionality.
All of this is really about the wider issue of usability. I’d like to do some decent research on what disabled users expect from their mobile devices before taking a definitive stance on that one! For now, though, I won't be building any separate mobile sites - just concentrating on getting the main one right.
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James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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| iheni wrote: |
| I think Nielsen raises some very good points about the issues we all face on the web and in many ways is correct in saying that the mobile web is much like desktop development in 1998 however disagree that two versions of a website are needed. |
| James wrote: |
| For this reason I hate it when I get directed to a Mobile version of a site, often with greatly reduced functionality. |
So I went to ITV's website with my battered old Sharpe which came with some ancient version of Openwave. This combination is slow but you can find information and complete tasks on "lean sites with clean code". But the ITV site directed me to the mobile version, which used a design and information architecture I was unfamiliar with.
After much digging around (at glacially slow in-transit mobile Internet speeds) I found the TV guide. It listed a maximum of 1 hour of programming per page. ITV has 4 channels in its network and I'm trying to check times from about 5pm to about 5am. To check all of ITV's programming between those times would have taken at least 48 page views.
It was terrible. I could almost see my fingernails grow each time I clicked the link to get the next hour of programming! After confirming the highlights show on ITV1 I gave up. Dropped in at newsagents near the airport to buy a printed TV guide. Found the repeat in that within seconds, at 11pm on ITV4 on Monday (or something like that).
A separate mobile site will only do your business good if you put as much effort and research into it as you would for the main website. Given that any organisation has finite resources, this seems impossible. Either they'll do an excellent job of 1 website or they'll do a mediocre job on 2 websites.
The financial and logistical realities reinforce my impression that focussing everything on 1 highly efficient and accessible website with a media="handheld" stylesheet will be the most usable (and therefore most profitable) strategy.
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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I thought this might be of interest; reading today that the Guardian is relaunching its mobile website.
The point seems to be that the newspaper feels 'it would be perverse for us not to make our content more accessible': http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/25/guardian-news-media-mobile-website
Agreed, but why only for mobile phones? It reads as though it may actually be an advertising revenue model.
The reporter is on Twitter using @jemimakiss, by the way, if you want to leave her a comment.
Helen
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Concise Content: freelance web content services
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Thanks for the Twitter heads-up Helen.
The litmus test will be how it integrates with the main site, and what choice mobile users are given about whether they browse the full site or the mobile version. I just tried to browse the main website on my device but it was very slow, so a streamlined version could be good, although why not just streamline the main site? We'll have to wait and see when it's launched next month.
| Guardian wrote: |
| 'it would be perverse for us not to make our content more accessible' |
I suspect they mean accessible as in 'more people can access it' rather than 'disabled people can access it' (i.e. they actually mean more available).
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James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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In case he's too modest to mention it himself, see Bruce Lawson's article on ZDnet: "Forget the mobile web: One site should work for all"_________________
James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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Oh, I'm blushing now._________________
www.brucelawson.co.uk
Web Evanglist, Opera, WaSP Accesibility Task Force
Study the Web Standards Curriculum
International Lothario (retired)
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Thanks James and Bruce; that's a really interesting article and am enjoying educating myself on this topic, thanks to people that know a lot, LOT more than me! Nice to see that ZDNet is placing increasing focus on covering accessibility too. Sometimes find that some of the IT sites are a bit lacking on regular articles on the area.
Helen
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Concise Content: freelance web content services
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You should not need to browse 48pages to find the content you need and a separate mobile site makes no sence for the majority of websites because there are two many feature variables and as mobiles get better and better the goal posts keep moving on. Even Opera has dropped forcing “mobile” media type on its new mobile browsers.
However it is worth while if your site target mobiles (eg: mobile GPS games!) or you are as large as the BBC/ITV but not for the majority of websites.
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Last edited by Johan007 on 06 Mar 2009 11:05 am; edited 1 time in total
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Bruce, why media queries? They are already rumblings of them becoming the new UA string. (Devices lie to get the full version of everything due to authors being too restrictive about it.)
I predict media queries will be ignored by the 2nd generation of mobiles which implement them, simply to ensure they always get the full-screen layout. Just like media="handheld" is becoming ignored by the cutting-edge mobiles of today.
The reason for this is simple: only the device knows what is good for it. Media queries are backwards; they let authors take control over the device's choice. They are the very antithesis to what your article was about, Bruce!
Given the slow rate of progress on mobiles, correctly identified and measured by Nielson, the current two-tier ecosystem seems likely to remain: some mobiles can handle full-screen layouts while others cannot. media="screen" for full-screen layout and media="handheld" for simplified layout is the honest and straightforward way of accommodating that. Let devices choose what suits them.
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
Last edited by Ben Millard on 05 Mar 2009 08:39 pm; edited 3 times in total
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