Ask Slashdot: Why Do Mobile Versions of Websites Suck? 382
First time accepted submitter Kelbear writes "As user traffic over mobile devices grows in leaps and bounds, it's surprising to me as a layman that so many companies still have crippled and broken mobile pages in late 2013. There must be justifiable reasons for this, so: Fellow Slashdotters, can you please share the obstacles you've seen in your own companies that have delayed or defeated efforts to develop competent mobile sites? Are the issues in obtaining or maintaining compatibility driven by platform owners like Apple and Google?"
Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:5, Funny)
The mobile version chokes up my browser so badly that I frequently just close the tab and move on to other sites. It's very annoying that I can't see the regular site from my iPad. (Maybe if I logged, but I don't want to log in)
Re: Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:2, Interesting)
I actually prefer, and mostly read Slashdot via mobile... either on my phone or tablet. The same goes for news sites and "blog type" sites.. less clutter gets me right to the content. That being said, most mobile sites downright suck. I refuse to bank, shop, or do any research via mobile web. I just isn't conducive to getting things done. So yes, I agree with the premise, but not this particular example.
Re: Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:2)
I can't figure out how to display comments that are filtered due to low mod on the mobile site.
Re: Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:5, Informative)
yeah if you see the gear...
on my mobile(opera on symbian) at least the mobile site threading is horribly, horribly broken. if a comment thread is 5 levels deep then there's 3 letters per line in a comment. woohoo! and that really doesn't seem like a coding fudge either, since if the design is like that, there's no other way it could be.. there's no space on the screen and spec says no sideways scrolling.
but more to the point.. mobile websites tend to suck because THEYRE FUCKING MORE COMPLEX AND HEAVIER THAN THE DESKTOP BROWSER VERSION!. this is true for the slashdot "mobile" version as well - I need a top banner coming down delayed and blocking my text reading like I need a hole in the head. that's because more development time goes to them - but shouldn't that make them better?? sure, if the designers didn't have their heads up their butts with their apps. also because designers never ever ever understand the slight differences between apple, android and windows phone mobile browsers the actual developers end up having to kludge things. sometimes they don't even understand different screen sizes, who the fuck wants modal input dialogs with decorations on small screens?? you're really being serious that you want 8px(PIXELS!!) font sizing on retina dpi display?? yeah, so the guy who needs to make it actually work has to take the compromises.
do not hire photoshop designers. they will never think the site through to the end, all they care is that they can do 3 pretty pictures of 3 situations where their "vision" for the site works, but you're stuck with having to make that work for the other 20 situations where the content doesn't fit to their idea and then in the end after going back and forth the answer for whoever is managing the project ends up being dropping those feats and making the site useless. like in the case of slashdot the way to "fix" the 3 letters per line comments would be to just limit the whole site into having threads only 3 levels deep. a shit solution, that users will hate? you bet!
then there's sites like news.bbc.co.uk which have decent mobile sites but recently removed mobile link from the top of the main page.. .... because they think their fucking autodetect works. it fucking doesn't!
I recently did a website that's mobile friendly, it actually works pretty ok but it could work on even more, if it wasn't that the design is flexible, in other words same site, same js, no matter what device... it still works ok, but could be better.
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but more to the point.. mobile websites tend to suck because THEYRE FUCKING MORE COMPLEX AND HEAVIER THAN THE DESKTOP BROWSER VERSION!
I find they suck mostly because the site owner presents what THEY think you should have rather than what YOU think you should have, which are worlds apart. If they were to start in this world on their mobile version, without ever having a prior version, it would probably still suck because they aren't thinking like the user, only what they want the user to focus on. eBay is also a prime example, though their regular site is into major suckage with trying to do too effing many things.
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Re:Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go to m.slashdot.org from a PC, you get redirected to classic.slashdot.org. If you visit classic.slashdot.org from an iPad, you get redirected to m.slashdot.org. HINT: SOME OF US USE PRIVATE BROWSING. DON'T FUCKING REDIRECT ME. I TYPED IT THAT WAY ON PURPOSE. Stop screwing with looking at the user agent and let me go where I goddamn asked to go, instead of requiring me to click a "Mobile Version" or "Desktop Version" link EVERY MOTHERFUCKING TIME.
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Re: Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:3)
Yes, Slashdot's mobile site sucis. On my Android phone, having to log in to reply forces me to drag the screen up to get the Ligon button above the keyboard, and there is no keyboard drop. In the Feedly browser, lift too far and got close the page and lose the reply. Pus.
Yes, is the interaction between Feedly and /., and I'm not expecting it to be addressed, because the fingerpointing will start in 3, 2,...
Re:Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has stated that site owners should serve a specific version for iPad users. I can't find their FAQ that discusses this, but I remember it from about a year ago.
Yes, an iPad specific theme provides a better experience for iPad users; however, this simply adds additional fragmentation to the web developer's workflow and is precisely the reason the movement has been so strong in the last few years to get away from browser/platform specific "workarounds".
We (web developers) have had to deal with IE for so long that when something new comes along that forces us into the same box we've been clawing our way out of, well, it's not surprising that we tell our bosses not to do it.
Consider that even as we near 2014, most web sites are not responsive. The whole responsive movement relies on building a site's theme into about three flavors (suit to taste); desktop, smaller screens (small laptops, etc) and mobile. The gray area between "small screen" and mobile is quite large and iPad suffers because it is often treated as a mobile device. After all, it has a touch screen like a mobile device. It is smaller than a desktop like a mobile device. It has a battery... etc etc.
When all is said and done, you're looking at the mobile version of a site on an iPad because the days of coding a specific version of a site for a specific device are behind us and it's a massive waste of money and resources.
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When all is said and done, you're looking at the mobile version of a site on an iPad because the days of coding a specific version of a site for a specific device are behind us and it's a massive waste of money and resources.
Exactly so.
Anyone selling a device that can't handle the web as it is, and demanding the web the way they want it, is someone you should immediately run away from like your hair is on fire. Web devs should never again bend to that way of thinking.
Re:Slashdot being a prime example of bad (Score:4, Informative)
It depends on the reason. If it can't take HTML/CSS/JavaScript and display it correctly, then it's simply a buggy device. If, however, it has a very small screen then there's a good reason for asking for a custom version. Browsing the web from my tablet, I typically want the same UI as on a desktop. The screen is big enough and it's fine. On my phone, I really hate the 3-column layout that lots of sites love because it's a pain to zoom just enough to see the middle one (where the content goes) and to scroll keeping it inline.
And some things, like mouse-over pop-up menus are just a bad idea on any device. At best they're lacking in discoverability, at worst they're impossible to use.
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A smart glass would advise you on the next special beer or whiskey, based on your current and previous drinks.
A smart glass would stop dispensing alcohol if it estimates the user is stupid enough to drive home and the alcohol consumption has exceeded the legal limit. It would, however still be usable for 0.0's and malts.
When it is full it is not adv
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It depends on your traffic though. On one of my client's sites the iPad now accounts for nearly 30% of all the traffic. iPhone is about 12%. All Android devices account for 15% of traffic. That means over half our traffic is now coming from mobile devices. We implemented responsive design in 2012, but now it's to the point where we are debating whether or not to offer a native app.
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If there is nothing you can do without an internet connection, don't make an app.
An app that simply renders web content is called a web browser, all smart phones already have one.
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Oh, and let's not forget that many corporate machines There run Windows policies that force IE 8 into 7 compatibility mode...
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You really are going to tell people they need to install a different OS to see your bloated site?
"The days of using the web browser that came with your computer are over, mom." Get Firefox. [getfirefox.com]
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So spoof your browser id string.
Oh. Let me guess. Apple and Safari won't let you do that.
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So spoof your browser id string.
Oh. Let me guess. Apple and Safari won't let you do that.
Safari (desktop version) has a developer menu that lets the end user specify any HTTP_USER_AGENT string:
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B3wWtj5n3Y6QZzFwb0h1YlJLQkU&export=download [google.com]
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B3wWtj5n3Y6QVEdMc0tnZGlwSHc&export=download [google.com]
Apple (all iOS versions) will let browsers change their HTTP_USER_AGENT; here's the Mercury browser doing just that:
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B3wWtj5n3Y6QWlJKSk9uOUhOVG8&export=download [google.com]
case in point (Score:5, Insightful)
and no way to turn it off.
Mobile sites just make too many assumptions, with no way to configure. Mostly those assumptions have to with advertisements.
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and no way to turn it off.
Eh?
You do have the option to switch between the mobile and the full site on a mobile device
Re:case in point (Score:5, Informative)
Install a separate browser then change the user agent settings to represent a desktop.
I do this on my phone and it solves the problem of crappy sites but I still have a browser I can go back to for those sites I need the mobile version for.
Re: case in point (Score:2)
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This only works because of the terrible practice of checking a user agent string to decide which version to display. YMMV.
If a site simply uses @media breakpoints in a single (or merged) stylesheet and serves that stylesheet to everyone, changing your UA string will do nothing. If that's the case, hit F12 and find the section in the style sheet that mentions "@media" and has some values for device widths. Not sure if there's a browser plug-in out there that lets you override and save CSS info on a site by
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I don't get peoples purism about web development. Often browsers nominally support something but are in fact broken (ok, this used to be true more before than it is now). So why not just check if it's internet explorer looking at this site so I can fall back to an image instead of their broken gradient rendering or such. I really see nothing wrong with this. Media queries have their place, but
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Really, I misspoke. What I should have said was, "terrible practice of **only** checking a user agent string..."
Re:case in point (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory:
http://xkcd.com/869/ [xkcd.com]
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Well, HTTP is a stateless protocol. Technically every HTTP server (temporarily) forgets about the requestor between every request.
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http://m.xkcd.com/869/ [xkcd.com]
(I use m.xkcd.com on mobile and desktop alike, FWIW.)
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The mobile and beta sites are actually built upon a REST API. Supposedly documentation was going to be released to the public, eventually. Personally, I wish more things supported AtomPub...
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Re:case in point (Score:5, Informative)
Re:case in point (Score:5, Informative)
BUMP! I second this, Mod this up. Mobile slashdot is wretched and SLOOOOOOWWWW!!!
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in firefox for mobile the hamburger menu 'request desktop site' works too
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Have you tried classic.slashdot.org ? I always browse the desktop version of /. on my phone because of how epically bad the mobile version is. I dead the day that the beta website becomes standard. That's worse than windows 8 level fail.
Answer your own question, Slashdot! (Score:5, Informative)
The mobile version of Slashdot sucks hard.
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This. I keep getting asked to try it out and fill in some sort of bland, pointless questionnaire that doesn't let me express what I feel about it.
Horrible ajaxy stuff so you have no idea if it's doing something or died. Would help if there were some sort of standard `i'm doing something` animation or indication across all sites, but no. Flashy rather than basic functionality.
Mobile sites often remove stuff that would work perfectly well on a mobile site. Mobile doesn't have to mean retarded. Switching fro
Re:Answer your own question, Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
AJAX.
The more you try and make it "responsive", the less it works.
This is a motherfucking website [motherfuckingwebsite.com]. It renders in every browser. It doesn't require Javascript, Java, Flash, AIR, or HTML5. It doesn't load 100kB of jQuery. In fact, the entire website takes up less space than most avatars do.
It. just. works.
Slashdot: Please abort the failed beta. Give the guy his money and let him go. Give him a promotion, he's obviously learned a lot about the hot new thing that'll look good on his resume next time. But please, just please, don't put that beta into production. It doesn't even have a 'view all comments' option. It's less functional than the current AJAX failure of D2, which itself was far less functional than the classic/D1 version. Please. Just. Stop.
Re:Answer your own question, Slashdot! (Score:5, Interesting)
That motherfucking website has, if you examine the source, Javascript at the bottom which loads more Javascript from google-analytics. There's a comment of "yes, I know...wanna fight about it?" which pretty much indicates that the site creator knows he's being a motherfucking hypocrite by putting that on a website whose supposed point is that that sort of thing is a bad idea.
(Of course I put google-analytics as 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts, since I see no reason to ever want to load anything from there, even if for some reason I have to turn ad blocking off.)
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Maximizing a window is a holdover from the 4:3 aspect ratio era, where maximizing windows could still have content comfortably read. If one uses a 16:9 widescreen, they'd normally avoid that issue having the browser fill one-half of the screen (Windows 7 does this by Alt-Left), making a nice, readable page.
Plus half-filling the screen lets you put something else on the other half, like something to take notes.
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If one uses a 16:9 widescreen, they'd normally avoid that...
One will use one's browser however one wishes, and website designers might consider that.
budget (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really that popular (Score:2)
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My biggest issues with mobile sites is when they don't allow zoom and the text is too damned small.
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Just about anything that I'd want to do with my phone is much better done by an app, even if the site has a good mobile version
My issue is that I shouldn't need an app to access the same info I can get via a browser on the desktop. Why, if that app does a better job, does it ask for permissions to data it has no need to access?
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My issue is that I shouldn't need an app to access the same info I can get via a browser on the desktop. Why, if that app does a better job, does it ask for permissions to data it has no need to access?
Duh; one of its important jobs is sending that data back to its mother ship (or to the NSA. ;-)
Doesn't everyone understand that? Are there "smartphone" users dumb enough to think that the app isn't doing such things?
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Quickly checking my Google Analyitics shows that, over the past month, about 52% of my traffic came from desktop users, about 35% came from mobile users, and about 13% came from tablet users. Yes, this is one case, but this article [marketingland.com] indicates that mobile use is now 28% of traffic. While mobile isn't overtaking desktop, it certainly is a large enough percentage of traffic that it should
Fundamentally... (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially in a world where people seem to prefer passive information (i.e. "show me," instead of "teach me"), why would it be expected that a smaller screen with lower bandwidth wouldn't be worse?
Worse than that (Score:2)
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What's a "Mobiles"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mobile PC? What's that? A notebook, right? Or one of those ones with detachable keyboards? Maybe you mean the ones with blutooth keyboard sold separately and the smaller (or, egad!, tiny) screens?
Yeah, the reason the mobile site sucks is because there is no such thing as a mobile personal computer. It's just a PC with a very capital P. If your hardware sucks, well, sorry man. Get with the times. I don't expect to play Gears of War on my 16 bit 80386 DOS machine.
There's this thing called Moore's Law.
Touch-controlled and ARM-powered (Score:2)
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Mobile PC? What's that? A notebook, right? Or one of those ones with detachable keyboards? Maybe you mean the ones with blutooth keyboard sold separately and the smaller (or, egad!, tiny) screens?
Close. Mobile is here simply synonym for "small screen". And the absence of a proper device, such as a mouse.
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Misedited that. Should be "absence of a pointing device".
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Slashdot used to have a great mobile site (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a year or two ago, Slashdot on mobile was great. It looked and functioned relatively similarly to the full site, but was formatted for narrow phone screens. It worked great. You could read comments, configure the comments, post comments, and moderate. It was, in my opinion, a perfect blend of the functionality of the full site with a mobile-optimized site. Sadly, Dice threw that all out and now we have the horrid mobile slashdot site. Ironically the traditional desktop site is more usable on the mobile screen than the mobile site. The new slashdot beta, on the other hand, well it just proves Dice doesn't really understand what this site it bought actually is.
Kudos to the submitter for managing to submit a story that really is, "why does slashot mobile suck?" but in a form that the story moderators accepted.
Once the beta desktop site goes live, I expect to see a story, "Why do site redesigns suck?" Sadly participating in that conversation will be much more difficult as even figuring out how to read comments in a sane way seems to be impossible with the new beta, let alone posting!
Kindle store useless (Score:2)
I have this with the Amazon store from within the Kindle app. It's completely useless compared to the desktop website. Even things as simple as turning the author's name into a link to their other works just isn't there. And that's just a simple link, so it can't be because they need to make it work for simple devices. So they only reason I can come up with is that they simply don't care.
It's easy to get right (Score:2, Informative)
Just do a multi-column layout with a content column that is narrow enough to be comfortably read on a smartphone. That's it. On a smartphone you can then just zoom into the content and read it and if you want to look at all the side stuff, shift over. On larger screens you get all the content in a readable width (instead of lines 150 characters long) and with all the side stuff in view. Best of both worlds.
What totally, utterly sucks is the "responsive design" sites that load a MB of CSS and Javascript fram
What side stuff? (Score:3)
Just do a multi-column layout with a content column that is narrow enough to be comfortably read on a smartphone.
So once I've started with #bodytext {max-width: 32em} for comfortable reading without skipping or rereading lines, what "side stuff" should I add on wider screens such as desktop and large tablets? I've read complaints that a web design isn't "using the full width" of a 1920px wide maximized PC browser window.
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Just do a multi-column layout with a content column that is narrow enough to be comfortably read on a smartphone.
If you do that, please add a link at the bottom of column n, to jump to the top of column n+1
They dont have to suck. (Score:2)
There are very good mobile websites, the problem is 99% of them are an afterthought. Oh we designed out website, now make a very simple mobile one quickly.
jQuery (mobile) has some awesome features that make the mobile version of a website fantastic.
Sadly it takes a site designer with real skills to make a good site that looks good across platforms, and that means expensive. Most companies barely want to pay the minimum for their website let alone what it takes to get a competent company that can make
Mobile version? (Score:2)
You mean WML version?
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I'm having trouble setting up the gateway.
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Mobile sites are a mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
Mobile sites should be the same site just with less/no flash and tighter layout. Beyond that, the site should be identical.
What is annoying about mobile sites is that frequently they're totally different and since they're second string productions they tend to be missing stuff.
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Intentional device discrimination (Score:2)
Some video providers sell PC rights to one company and sell mobile rights to another. This produces "The content owner has not made this video available on mobile" error messages.
When I look at a Facebook comment section with a desktop user agent, I get "Comment using..." that lets me log in with the Yahoo!, AIM, or Microsoft account that I already have, but with a mobile user agent, I get "Login to Facebook to Post a Comment". Nobody has yet managed to convince me of the benefit of having a Facebook acc
please don't make a mobile version (Score:2)
just don't make a mobile version. please. you're not smart enough.
I hate going to websites on my phone and being kicked into some crippled view that doesn't have what I want. so just, don't.
I can navigate the sites I know very well on my phone's browser. no "help" needed.
The problem is "Mobile Version" (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern phones don't really need a mobile version of a site. As a user I usually find myself forcing the "desktop" version of the site when I can. As a web developer I usually tell people not to waste their money on a mobile version. Most mobile sites suck because someone decided they needed a mobile version either for cool factor or to please a boss. They didn't have a good budget and cut corners on every aspect. There are use cases where a website should be done in a mobile format and can be useful when the budget is available.
Lets start with good mobile sites. Those that should be mobile. These are sites that someone might access while actually on the go or need to do something quick. Think directions or ordering food. Most people don't want to shop Target from their phone. However a lot of people want to get directions to the closest Target. A good mobile site would prioritize the directions/location aspect. That works for retail and your standard service businesses. The other type is restaurants that deliver. When you are sitting in front of your TV and want to order a pizza, you obviously are in lazy mode. A restaurant mobile website can make the ordering process simple and quick. These are examples of use cases where mobile sites work and and should be used.
I think most mobile sites fall in the category of "we need a mobile site" This is where there is no budget and the client is offered a shitty mobile site so a developer can make a quick buck with buzz words. These sites tend to be created with generators or a general theme on a Wordpress site. Nothing special and usually makes the experience worse.
The last category is what you asked about. A good mobile friendly website. These are sites that don't fall into the restaurant/location (however I consider those ones that don't suck) category because they need more than just directions or ordering pizza. These types of sites cost a lot to develop. Developing a true user friendly mobile site is not easy. Think about developing a site for IE7, IE8, IE9, Safari, FF, and Chrome. Fairly standard a year or so ago. It took time. Now multiply that by 10. Ok so now you know the time involved to develop and test a good mobile site. However you only have a Galaxy S4 to test on. So now you need to go purchase multiple iPhones, multiple Android phones, a few iPads and maybe a few Android tablets. You can now start debugging on all these devices. Good luck! Oh and then ask your customers if they care. The ROI is not there.
This is why mobile sites suck. No one wants to invest the money to do it right. Even those that do invest the money either focus on a single platform or can't keep up with the ever changing community of mobile devices.
Taking some of the points from above you realize that you should just have a normal site and let people deal with zooming (pinching) in and out to click on links. Or maybe go for an app if you have something specialized.
Ironically mobile websites used to be more useful. (Score:2)
They used to offer the core functionality, without all the extra clutter and crap the regular version had. Mobile websites were quicker to load. Then mobile exploded in the marketplace, more companies started paying more attention to their mobile presence, and now often the mobile sites are no better than the web versions.
Either are improved by focusing on functionality first.
Google Mobile is bad, too. (Score:2)
I can barely use Google's Mobile. Why?
1) They have turned off the ability to reverse pinch to make the text bigger.
2) They are using White Background with Gray Letters.
Really guys, does anyone test their software in enviroment that is not a designed "normal" mode.
The internet with it's structure allowed for the user to adjust character size to make it readable... Now, you turn it off! Some great help or equallizer!
YES (Score:2)
oblig. (Score:3)
xkcd [xkcd.com]
Most relevant is the image tip text. Ran into this last night, with no ability to get to the link I had found via search engine. I had to give up on the site and go elsewhere. Is there a way to set Chrome Mobile to pretend to be a regular browser? (hey anyone remember the browser agent dropdown selection in old versions of opera)
Responsive Web Design (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks to CSS3's media queries, no site should need a "mobile version." You design one site and have it modify itself based on the browser's size. A good example of this is the Boston Globe's site [bostonglobe.com]. Go to the site in Chrome or FireFox (not IE) in a large, but not maximized browser. Now slowly resize the browser, making it smaller and smaller. As you do, the site will reconfigure itself from full-fledged desktop site to small-screen mobile site (with quite a few steps in between).
The benefit of this is, of course, that you don't need to maintain two or three different sites. You maintain one site and modify it to suit different sized browsers. Compare this to a mobile site which needs to redirect users to a different URL and often needs a completely separate development effort.
Wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
When high-end mobiles had EDGE and QVGA, and many people were stuck with GPRS and 160px screens, mobile sites were absolutely necessary. But with today's phones, the question is not why mobile sites suck, but why we need mobile sites at all.
Over the past decade, the actual functionality of websites, aside from streaming video (which is huge, to be sure) has barely changed at all. Over the same decade, mobile hardware and software have advanced to match the low-end desktops of 2003. If video streaming is handled by separate apps (as it mostly is), there's little reason one website shouldn't work for both desktop and mobile use.
I only really see four differences between today's 1136x640 or 1280x720 phone and yesterday's 1024x768 desktop, as far as web browsing goes:
It seems like a tiny fraction of the effort spent on mobile sites (making a few changes to mobile browsers) could permit many existing sites to work just fine on both mobiles and desktops, and an additional fraction (making changes to those websites) would fix almost all the remaining ones. Fiddling with mouseover emulation and zooming clearly costs the user time vs. a good mobile-only site, but it's not at all clear to me that that's really true vs. an average mobile site (which, on average, is what you'll get) or that if it is, that the cost in wasted user time is less than the cost in developer time expended on creating and maintaining a mobile site.
Of course, this is all built on the assumption that a website that does A, B, and C today should be no more complicated and require no more resources than a website doing A, B, and C in 2003. While this may appear reasonable enough, Wirth's law says it's too much to expect. But a guy can dream, no?
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Re:mobile is for a quick check on the go (Score:4, Insightful)
"Get a device with a big enough screen, and use the desktop version of the internet."
I would not have worded it the same way you did, but I agree.
The reason mobile versions of web sites suck, is because mobile devices suck.
They're okay for what they are. But there are reasons why books and newspapers (for hundreds-of-years-old classic examples) aren't printed on 2.5" x 4" paper. And that reason is: it is just plain not enough room to convey information well via the printed word. You can still fit it in if you make the print tiny, but then it's unreadable by half the population.
Period. End of story. Granted, some sites could do better, but you aren't going to change the basic, underlying problem.
Get a device with a big enough screen, and the internet isn't painful anymore. It's that simple.
Re:mobile is for a quick check on the go (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a device with a big enough screen, and the internet isn't painful anymore. It's that simple.
Heh. That doesn't always help. A lot of the Internet is painful by design. They make it that way with malice aforethought.
A trivial example in the window I'm typing in right now: There's a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of this /. window. OK, it has a width= attribute that shouldn't be there that's forcing it to a fixed width, right? Nope. I grabbed one of the resize handles on the window's border, and resized it a few times. No matter what size I made it on my (rather large) screen, the /. window is sized to be slightly wider than that. It dynamically detects the size, and forces the content to be wider.
This is fairly common, and the solution is trivial: Remove all the width= and other size attributes. There's nothing in this /. page that requires such things, and without them, the browser will "flow" the text so that everything fits. But /., like so many sites, tries doing something "clever" (i.e., dumb) with the sizes, and as a result, there's nothing I can do to make it fit.
This is known in legal circles as "with malice aforethought". The developers understand the problem quite well. If they didn't, they wouldn't be smart enough to use HTML in the first place. So they must be doing it intentionally.
And I've seen why this can happen. I've worked on a number of projects that needed a web interface. On many of them, I've gotten explicit orders that the pages must be sized to specific width, so they'll fit in the window the boss wants to use on his desktop. If the boss's desired size isn't the default, it won't be accepted. This sort of idiocy is quite common, and it's not easy to fight.
Actually, I have "fixed" it on a number of projects. These were cases where we had a good reason to have all pages delivered by a CGI program that parses the client's request, runs appropriate data-fetching and -munging subprocesses, and formats the results in HTML. I sneak in a little check of the HTTP_USER_AGENT, and if it's IE (which is the only browser that such bosses know exists), my code generates the required width= attributes; else it produces no sizing instructions at all. The results usually work fine on anything from a dumb "smartphone" to a humongous window on a humongous display. Or a small browser window on your screen, whatever it is. And it meets the boss's requirement for a fixed width on his screen.
So far, I haven't been caught performing such treachery by any of my bosses, but it's probably only a matter of time. They often believe that their web sites need only work on screens exactly like the one on their desk, and they explicitly order their developers to do it that way, or else.
This is just one of the many reasons for the problem we're discussing. It's yet another example of the old one about not attributing something to malice which may be explained by stupidity. (Quick, without googling it, which famous writer is that usually attributed to? ;-)
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not for hours of detailed surfing on a site
if you want a good experience for mobile, code an app
So why people complain at smartphones batteries giving out after 6 hours in a day?
Believe me, people DO use smartphones to do heavy surfing. They really do. People do everything (and more) on smartphones they do on PCs.
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Believe me, people DO use smartphones to do heavy surfing.
I don't own a "smart" phone, you insensitive clod!
But seriously, I don't. And I don't want one, either. As someone who does actual work on a computer, I'll stick with my 3x 24" LCDs. I'll be double-damned if I'm going to sit hunched over finger swiping trying to read tiny text on a goddamn *phone*.
It's fucking regression. These "smart" phones have screens the size computers did when I was a kid. Why would I want to go back to 1980?
People do everything (and more) on smartphones they do on PCs.
Try working with spreadsheets or writing code on your iPhone.
I'm sorry,
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And certainly not something you'd ever do, since you haven't tried? I find my "smart" phone does plenty of things I'd rather not do on my desktop - simple games, getting a quick look at /. or stackoverflow (and forwarding pages for later reading to my InstaPaper account), listening to music, making calls or videocalls. Smart phones do plenty of things well, but reading long blocks of text is not one of them.
Re:mobile is for a quick check on the go (Score:5, Insightful)
You carried a battery-operated pocket computer with 24-bit color, accelerated 3D graphics, a library of books (or music or movies or whatever), voice recognition, GPS-based navigation, a multi-point capacitive touchscreen, a surprisingly good digital camera or two, and a fast always-on wireless Internet connection in 1980?
Seriously. I do my real work with a multi-headed desktop, and I usually have one or more laptops in the trunk of the car for when I'm out and about, and I prefer to read books and magazines on paper.
But I do use my smartphone far more often than I anticipated -- if I want to Google some curiosity while sitting on the couch, find a recipe to use something that is on special at the grocery store, or if I'm chatting with someone (in real life) and I need to forward them an email, or document something with a photograph, or take a quick note without rounding up a pen and paper: I can just do it, and be done with that task, and move on to other things.
It even routes me around traffic congestion when driving, and gets me to the right bus/train/whatever station at the right time to get me where I'm going in an unfamiliar city.
And a myriad of other things. Pocket computers are useful tools for all sorts of stuff that I can't do with my desktop computer because, simply, the desktop computer does not fit into my pocket.
Do I edit spreadsheets and write code with it? No. But I could do so if I were strongly motivated to: It has an HDMI port and handles Bluetooth keyboards and mice just fine...but by the time I go through that amount of effort, I'm better off to fire up a laptop (which I will probably use with the tethering function on the pocket computer).
Then again, I do use it to ssh into various boxen to do various simple tasks while I'm out and about. It works just fine as a pocket-sized glass teletype.
Re:mobile is for a quick check on the go (Score:5, Insightful)
But I do use my smartphone far more often than I anticipated -- if I want to Google some curiosity while sitting on the couch, find a recipe to use something that is on special at the grocery store, or if I'm chatting with someone (in real life) and I need to forward them an email, or document something with a photograph, or take a quick note without rounding up a pen and paper:
That's what concerns me, and why I don't get one. I'd keep finding more and more stuff I can do with it, and then pretty soon, I'm another little glowing screen zombie bumping into people in the supermarket because I'm fucking updating my goddamn Facebook status to tell everyone I'm buying olives and free-range soda pop at Whole Foods, and then I realize -- Holy shit OMG FML -- I have just become one of those little glowy-screen-zombie fuckers I dreaded. So I post my existential crisis on Google+ and Twitter it while I Instagram out a photo of this killer deal they have on red snapper. But wait! This app tells me that red snapper is cheaper at Trader Joes by a half a buck a pound, so I dash out to the car, bumping in to only 3 other Twatterers on the way out of the store, use my GPS nav to find my way the 4 blocks west to the other store.
Then I post on Facebook wondering how come I don't have any free time any more... and check it every 3 minutes to see who "liked" that and who didn't, and OMG! my sister in law just posted some new pictures (8,000 so far this month -- it's a newborn!) of her daughter -- so cute! So I like like like, right? Then I forget why I came to Trader Joe's, so I check my history... nope. Why did I come here? Aww, cute cat videos! Oh hell, I didn't check the NFL scores today, lemme do that real quick while I'm driving 10mph below the speed limit in the fast lane... etc etc etc.
Anyway, yeah. Basically, I don't want to become... you or any other little touchy screeny zombie. Because you know what? I plan my shopping. I download recipes, but I don't need them *at the store*. If I need to Google something, I get my ass off the couch and walk to my office. Same goes for forwarding emails. There is absolutely nothing internet-ish that is so fucking important that it can't wait til I get to my computer. There is nowhere, and no wait, so awfully boring that I can't amuse myself thinking, knitting, or reading a book.
Most of all, I live. Life is just fine without constant electronic distraction.
Sure, my friends tell me, "get a smart phone! You'll love it!" I'd probably love cocaine, too, which is why I don't try it.
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Hmm.
I think you're missing something: Frugality.
1. When I'm standing in someone's far-away office talking to them about some problem or solution that has already been hashed out in email with other parties, it makes me more money (as opposed to less money) to be able to just instantly forward stuff to them...and then they can read it comfortably on their desktop.
2. When I'm driving and get swiftly re-routed automatically onto surface streets because the freeway (perhaps miles ahead) ahead has turned into
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if you want a good experience for mobile, code an app
And watch Apple or Microsoft end up rejecting it.
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[Mobile Facebook.com is] better than the app, but what's wrong with taking me to the full version of the site?
Sites that depend on SWF or on CSS :hover can't be used on mobile.
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However works on the galaxy note series of items so long as you are using the spen. However what I have learned is to mostly work on removing hover wherever possible since it is non-obvious to many people. The bootstrap menus do a nice job of making a menu that works without hover and is immediately obvious what it does and how it works.
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Web technologies themselves suck and unfortunately they also set the development bar very low, so pseudo-developers can make shit.
This is a recipe for lulz and swearing.
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so pseudo-developers can make shit.
I'd say that the real reason is that web developers are often "the developer" with very little if any support from specialists.
This means they have to know a very diverse toolbox and can't afford to specialize in one thing. As a result they end up knowing everything fairly well instead of knowing a specific chain of tools expertly.
Ranges of screen sizes (Score:2)
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If you want to surf the web, use a PC with a large monitor.
That tends to require an expensive tethering plan in countries where it is customary to exclude tethering from the basic data plan.
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In the web site editor...
WTF is a web site editor? Sounds like something Adobe is trying to sell.
CSS3 viewport width (Score:3)
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My phone has zoom, why would I want a dumbed down version of a site just because I'm using a phone?
Because a finger is a far less precise pointing device than a mouse. Touch areas need to be bigger, and hover is impossible unless you're using a Galaxy Note with the included stylus. And if your site is focused on classic SWF, such as Kongregate or Newgrounds or Albino Blacksheep or Dagobah, SWF doesn't work on mobile.
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Saying that a desktop site works fine on modern smartphone / retina displays is a fatuous comment - your fatuous fingers aren't going to scale to retina resolution when you poke that link. To make a site work well at that size it needs designing for that size.
When I click a link that's so close to another link that I hit more than one, my browser shows me a zoomed in thumbnail of the links so I can choose the one I really wanted, so the physical size of the links on my screen doesn't really matter.
6x Budget (Score:3)