Mobile Web Problem

Back in the 90s when we were all still creating our websites in HTML 3.2 we optimised pages for dial-up and compressed images down to the smallest gif we could. One unfortunate side effect of the Broadband boom in the UK worldwide is that websites don't cater for the optimal page sizes which mobile devices necessitate.

Even with the bandwidth problems of popular sites (BBC News front page is 278KiB) until last week the BBC News site did fit on my 800 pixel wide Nokia 770. However they have changed it now, so a minimum display width of 1000 pixels is required. We can of cause switch to the low graphics version.. but when the version before fitted, it is a shame we have to go back to a nearly text-only web page if I choose to browse on a mobile device.

A lot of web designers (including the BBC?) make the mistake of looking at the screen resolution of their visitors and assuming that people browse full-screen, when many people do not maximise their browser windows.. so that 1280x1024 display window is actually only about 800x600.

If you look at the resolutions of mobile devices you will see all the current Sony Ericsson models run at 240x320 resolution, and Nokia models the same. Apple iPhone is slightly higher at 320x480. LG KU990 Viewty comes in at 240x400

The other thing for website designers is to remember is that a 240pixel wide display which measures 2 inches across is 120dpi (compared to a normal desktop 72dpi), so if you display your text at 10pt, that will look 40% smaller (why aren't font sizes specified in cm on screen ?)

So web designers, remember there mobile market for browsing is growing all the time, optimise for small page bandwidth, and page width/height no more than 800px (my site comes in at 768px ;)

The other problem is sites with broken HTML, like the BBC News site, 375 errors. That is shoddy! (I should point out that blogger which generates my site has left 169 errors on the page, so I'm not in the clear either!).