Web Designers Must Embrace Mobile
Best practice web design is a fascinating subject because technologies change, our knowledge constantly grows and the world around us is in constant flux. We always have technological barriers being solved by fresh techniques and the sun never seems to set on a definition of what defines a great product.
The Wild West Decade & the New Law in Town
Let me draw your attention back to the heady days of the Wild West… defined by me as 2000 to 2010. It was a decade that saw the rise and rise of the Web Standards Movement, WaSP and the CSS Zen Garden. It was the era that saw best practice move away from table layouts and gave us the methodology of separating content from presentation from behaviour.
We also moved from a time where two primary browsers – Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape – expanded into a landscape of many browsers. And we left 800×600 screen sizes behind…. monitors jumped from the expected 15 or 17 inch Cathode Ray Tubes to these monsterous flat screens in dual setups. Even better… we took our browsers down to the tiny screens of iPhones and Blackberry’s and pretty much anything we put into a pocket or play video games on.
At the same time the world has seen an explosion of bandwidth and the rise of social networking. But moving into the second decade of the millenium we have to embrace this new paradigm – web designers AND web designs need to embrace mobile.
The Smartphone Browser Landscape
So the last decade has led to a real challenge. We no longer have a two browser environment with the expectation of 800×600 or even 1024×768 resolution. The person who shops online or seeks information could be on any connected device they happen to have their hands on.
We need to accept that the context of web design has moved off the desktop and into our real lives. It will only get more profound as the Internet becomes more tied into our ambient environment – as you notice applications taking advantage of that interconnectivity.
In the Peter-Paul Koch article titled Smartphone Browser Landscape on A List Apart he said that in three or four years web designers will be expected to be including mobile development in their swag of skills. I’d go further… I’d say that if you’re not including this in some fashion at the end of 2010 then you’re doing the clients a disservice.
If you’re designing websites then they should at least be proactively addressing the landscape of 2013… at a minimum. Design shouldn’t be restricted to looking backwards at our arses as the revolving door swings shut on the way out of the building. Our job and our responsibility to clients would be to keep them in business with a focus at a minumum for the expected duration of the work we provide.
Embracing Mobile for a Reason
Luke Wroblewski’s Data Mondays provide the easiest glimpse of where this momentum is headed. A quick look at the lead in from his June 2010 post Mobile Apps vs Mobile Web – over 55 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter of 2010.
These devices have capabilities to address context and whether a web designer wants to accept it or not NOW and TODAY website visitors are dialing into our web designs and asking why these designs don’t work. We’re getting big #FAIL markers for ourselves and our clients. The minimum bar for best practice web design in January 2011 should (and WILL BE) the ability of our web designs to be read and navigated on various mobile platforms.
There is a lot to be said for listening to those Data Monday statistics… over 150 million Blackberries have been sold worldwide… the iPhone has not only transformed the landscape it’s become an ecommerce force to be reckoned with… and global handset sales are predicted to reach 1.3 billion in 2010 with 20 per cent annual Smartphone growth over the next six years.
The Minimum you should Provide for Clients
The question is how does this inform your design decisons? And how do you technically account for the incredible and growing diversity of platform and resolution that may visit your design in the real world context of everyday commerce? Those are the big challenges of the next few years in web design.
If you’re a web professional that should get you excited about the minimum level you should be at right now. Have you played around with CSS Media Queries? Do you understand how mobile applications work? Are you up to speed on the limitations of mobile devices and the different levels of device capability? No this isn’t a post with all the answers to make your life simple.
You Should be Excited by the Disruption
This post is a statement true and fair – you need to embrace delivering content to the mobile platform now… today. Your clients need to embrace mobile now. If you thought being a web designer was going to keep you nestled safely within HTML 4 and CSS 2.1 forever… welcome to the world of Information Technology.
And if you’re not excited by the potential of all that disruption then please leave the industry. Seriously. This is where the rubber meets the road.
