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Start designing for the small web today

Posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 under web design news by Dustin Brewer.

With smartphones growing in popularity and more people around the world browsing the web from their mobile phones the web is growing increasingly smaller. Currently there is even a TLD (Top Level Domain) .mobi that is designed to be used specifically for mobile devices. This means that there is a big push from consumers to be able to have content on their phones work for their phones.It used to be worrying about your web site looking good on 800×600 and also equally looking good on 1024×768 resolution. Or you were worrying about your web site looking right on Netscape, Firefox, IE5, IE6, IE7 and Opera. Now you really have to start practicing perfect web design because you have to make your web site fit on a 640×480 smartphone and still be readable and usable for the end user.

Does this mean you need to make the text extra large or make the graphics minimal if not just your logo? It is hard to say what the end method will be and just like the regular web the small web will have varying methods to get the job done that people prefer.

The real question that has started to top the minds of designers is if we are the reason the web is being held back from being used more prominently on mobile phones. It is our job of course to ensure that end users can use our web sites and utilize our content. We haven’t had enough focus maybe to moving everything to being able to be viewed on a tiny screen, the ability is there but most of us have probably missed the bus by making our web sites fully accessible to mobile phone users. I know that I have yet to add a script that will allow the strip-down of the web site to be read on a mobile phone.

I think it is time for us all to make that move and the sooner that some of us jump on this bandwagon and make sure that our web site are able to be viewed on mobile phones the better adoption our sites will take to those on the move and the better we will look over our competitors. People reading and using our web sites on the move encounter a lot more people that they could discuss our web site with then those sitting at home reading or using our web sites alone. Obviously.

Could this be a marketing tool? I think that as time passes we could probably utilize the GPS abilities of the mobile phones on the web and create social networking amongst people interacting with other people in malls, colleges and concerts and on the streets. If we make this move early and strong we could definitely see an entirely new monetary stream from consumers that are looking for services developed through the focus of web on mobile phones as a viable option rather then just something that can be done: but avoided at all costs.

So my suggestion (and aspiration) to everyone is to make their web sites accessible not only to all the browsers and viewable perfectly on all the resolutions. But try to make it readable on mobile phones as well as looking well designed.