Cloud Four Blog

One conference I’ve been looking forward to all year is the Design4Mobile conference coming up September 20-24th in Chicago. I was excited before I saw the speaker list. Now, the conference can’t come soon enough!

(This was supposed to be a short post, but I got excited about all the cool speakers and wrote too much. So skip to the bottom to find out how to get a limited number of 15% discount codes for registration.)

I’ve attended a lot of conferences over the last few years. The conferences I’ve attended either have a broader focus and if I’m lucky, they have a mobile track. Some simply have have a session or two on mobile.

Other conferences that are focused on mobile tend to be of two different types. They are either focused on one platform exclusively (e.g., Apple’s WWDC) or are older conferences focused on telecoms (e.g., CTIA).

I’ve enjoyed the majority of the conferences I’ve attended so I can’t complain much about the format. But what has me excited about Design4Mobile is that it is the only conference I know of that is focus on mobile design and user experience. Four days of in depth conversations on these topics.

The conference is organized by Barbara Ballard and Little Springs Design who have been working on mobile design long before the iPhone. They are experts who I follow closely.

That alone would be enough, but come on, the speaker list is just insane. Here are just a few highlights:

• Josh Clark, Global Moxie and author of Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps — I saw Josh speak at SXSW long before I met him on Twitter or knew of his book. His session was the best one I saw. Phenomenal.
• Suzanne Ginsburg, Ginsburg Design and author of Designing the iPhone User Experience: A User-Centered Approach to Sketching and Prototyping iPhone Apps — I saw Suzanne speak earlier this year in Seattle before her book was published. She interviewed a lot of designers and developers in the process of developing her book so it’s great to hear the stories of how different people tackle problems.
• Scott Jenson, Mobile UX Designer at Google — Scott was on a panel with Barbara Ballard at SXSW. He has a practical approach to mobile, has a quick wit, and was talking about how phone can be used without taking them out of your pocket which I found fascinating.
• Corey Pressman, Exprima Media — It’s strange to look forward to seeing someone speak who works down the hall from you, but Corey spoke last week at Mobile Portland and I learned two things. 1. I learned just enough about his thoughts on mobile in education and the future of textbook publishing to want to know more. 2. That he is an excellent presenter and very funny.
• Katrin Verclas, MobileActive — I admire Katrin and her work at MobileActive so much. It is this sort of work that inspires me for what mobile technology can mean for society.
• Luke Wroblewski, Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital — I saw Luke speak at Web Visions a few years ago before he got bitten by the mobile bug. His talk was full of both data and insights. Can’t wait to hear more of his thoughts on mobile and try to figure out what his is up to next (ssshhh… It’s a secret!)

And there are many more people I can’t wait to see. I’ve meant to write this for quite some time to say simply, if you are interested in mobile—particularly mobile design—this is the conference you should attend.

I have a limited number of 15% off registration codes for the conference. If you are interested in a code, please leave a comment or fill out the contact form and I’ll send it to you.

I hope to see you in Chicago!

In the midst of the conversation last week about CSS media query for mobile, Brian Fling said, “this is very similar to the ‘one web’ debate which has been raging in mobile for over five years.”

Exactly. In fact, it’s the same debate with new participants.

Blast from the Past: One Web Debate in 2006

Four years ago, Barbara Ballard described the debate like this:

“There are two main camps in the mobile web:

1. One Web. The Internet is the Internet, and sites should run well on all devices. Optimization should be based on CSS and device detection, but should not change site function or content beyond the necessary.
2. Mobile Web. The mobile is a different platform with different capabilities and different user needs. Sites should be optimized for mobile in many (but not all) cases.”

One of the things that struck me about last week’s discussion of CSS media queries was that there was an assumption on the part of many that delivering a single html document no matter the device was a desirable goal.

Whether people realize it or not, they’ve subscribed to the One Web viewpoint.

By contrast, many of the people who I consider leaders in mobile thought—Brian Fling, Jeff Croft, Barbara Ballard, Cameron Moll, etc.—were quick to point out that delivering different HTML makes sense most of the time for a variety of reasons ranging from performance to user context.

A Contrasting Viewpoint from Opera

In a bit of fortunate timing, between last night when I finished the draft of this post and this morning, Daniel Davis from Opera wrote about his perspective on CSS media query and One Web.

Daniel points out that Opera has “championed media queries for several years now” and points to a dedicated page detailing Opera’s full support of One Web.

Daniel outlines several positives of the One Web approach including “the obvious benefit of having only one codebase, albeit possibly more complex, to update and maintain,” and points out some potential pitfalls of content adaptation including the “there’s always likely to be an off–the–wall or cutting–edge device that falls between the cracks” of device detection databases like WURFL.

Daniel’s article is well-articulated and worth a read.

I don’t disagree with the points he makes about appeal of delivering a single HTML document, but I have yet to see anyone do it on anything other than small sites and personal blogs. And even then, the ones I’ve seen suffer from the performance items I mentioned last week.

Opera has been promoting CSS media query for mobile for several years and has a stated position on One Web, yet it doesn’t use these techniques for it’s own site.

Daniel writes that if his team “had more control over the company-wide CMS.” I wish that they did as well so we could see how they would build it.

So here we are several years after the One Web debate started and it’s easy to find sites that are based on the content adaptation and provide different html and assets based on the device class.

But outside of personal blogs and demo sites, it is difficult to find examples of pages based on delivering the same HTML to every device and using Javascript and CSS to progressively enhance the content.

Translation: We Don’t Deliver Single HTML Documents Now

Anyone who has worked on a site that supports multiple languages knows that we don’t have One Web on the desktop web. We don’t have any problem delivering different html documents and assets to someone who speaks a different language.

I have yet to see a single article arguing that we should deliver a baseline English version of web page and then use javascript to progressively enhance the page with Spanish or Chinese.

Why is it ok for us to deliver different HTML documents because the user uses a different language, but it isn’t ok for us to deliver different HTML documents because the user is using a different device?

W3C’s Definition of the One Web Does Not Mean One HTML Document

The W3C’s Mobile Best Practices Working Group tackled the issue of One Web long ago. They came to a conclusion that matches up well to my view of the mobile web.

The W3C’s Mobile Best Practices Working Group defines the One Web Principle as:

One Web means making, as far as is reasonable, the same information and services available to users irrespective of the device they are using. However, it does not mean that exactly the same information is available in exactly the same representation across all devices. The context of mobile use, device capability variations, bandwidth issues and mobile network capabilities all affect the representation.

They go on further to define “Thematic Consistency of Resource Identified by a URI“:

Content should be accessible on a range of devices irrespective of differences in presentation capabilities and access mechanism…

A bookmark captured on one device should be usable on another, different type of device even if it does not yield exactly the same experience. If the page that was bookmarked is not appropriate for the device that is now using it, an alternative that is suitable should be provided.

To summarize:

• Mobile devices should receive content that is thematically consistent with the content that someone would see at a given URI in a desktop browser.
• The content, functionality, and appearance of the information delivered to mobile devices may vary significantly from that which is delivered to the desktop web.

This is a definition of One Web that I can get behind.

One Web Means Access to Optimized Content

As more web developers start thinking about and developing for mobile, we can expect to see this debate about the One Web reemerge again and again.

You may not agree with the conclusions I’ve come to about the One Web. That’s fine.

But at minimum, make sure that you’re not simply adopting the idea of a single HTML document as being inherently better without questioning where that assumption comes from.

Is a single HTML document the best solution for your users? Or is it simply the best solution for you?

To me, One Web is about universal access to information, not delivering the exact same code, assets or even content.

In my vision, I can send a url to someone and know that no matter where they are in the world, no matter what device they are using, that they will be able see that information in a way that is optimized for them.

Some of the research we’ve been doing into mobile operating systems and browsers is now available as an article on O’Reilly Radar. Here is a short excerpt:

In 2006, two mobile operating systems controlled 81 percent of the market. This year there are 10 different smartphone operating systems.

Over that same period of time, mobile browsers have gone from many different proprietary rendering engines to the point where WebKit alone will power browsers in more than 85 percent of the smartphones sold.

Read the more of Mobile operating systems and browsers are headed in opposite directions at O’Reilly Radar.

I’m traveling to SXSW for the first time this weekend. I’m speaking on a panel entitled iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators on Saturday, March 13th at 11 am.

I’m looking forward to talking about the iPad. We had a great panel last month at Mobile Portland on the iPad that I moderated. I tried my best not to jump in and offer my opinion (sometimes succeeding better than other times). It will be fun to be able to talk iPad without trying to be a neutral moderator.

In addition, I’m going to be on a panel moderated by Carlo Longino of MobHappy at Mobile Monday Austin on Monday evening.

Immediately preceding the panel, Barbara Ballard of Little Springs Design will give a presentation on Mobile User Experience Design. Barbara is one of the leaders in mobile design. Her book and blog are must reads.

The Mobile Monday event is only a couple of blocks from the center of SXSW so you have no excuse not to be there!

Finally, if you’re also going to be in Austin for SXSW, I’d love to meet you. Either connect with me via the SXSW site, Twitter, or contact me directly.

Last week, we finally got to take the wraps off of one of our favorite projects of the last year: JEDEC.org.

While on our blog we mostly talk about mobile, we also do a fair amount of traditional web site development work.

In particular, we’ve helped many standards-setting organizations and associations like JEDEC with their public web sites.

JEDEC came to us with substantial issues that needed to be addressed. The current site had long outgrown its information architecture and had three different navigation systems and site maps.

We performed a full content audit and combined web analytics with information architecture analysis to create a new site structure that focused on helping people find information more quickly.

In particular, web analytics showed that the majority of people coming to the site wanted to download standards. The new design brings the search interface right onto the newly designed home page.

The search interface was reworked to provide people with the ability to narrow their searches. When documents are uploaded to the site, they automatically show up on the related committee pages and other sections of the site where the documents are relevant.

We worked with JEDEC to define technology focus areas that help people new to the organization understand the current hot topics for the organization and get a quick sense about what JEDEC does. These technology focus pages are all dynamic are constantly updating with new information as documents, press releases, and events are added.

We also collaborated with other vendors to integrate event data coming from another system and to provide a single-sign on strategy with a membership management system.

Perhaps most importantly, we had a great time working with JEDEC and its staff. In particular, Emily Desjardins and Arnaud Lebegue became part of our extended team over the last few months. We’re grateful for the opportunity to work with them and to see their vision come to finally come to life.