Mobile content
Introduction
Given how small mobile device screens currently are, it's fair to say that most people only browse the Internet on their phones out of necessity — not through choice. Also, most people don't have 3G Internet access on their mobiles, which means browsing the web on your phone can often be a slow and painful process.
With this in mind, it's best to approach mobile content provision from a "get in, get out" mentality. What I mean by this is: it's important for mobile content providers to identify the pertinent information people would want access to, quickly and easily.
What, When and Where
Some typical use cases might be for customers trying to find timetable information for a train, bus or plane. It's not unreasonable to think these customers will be accessing the site whilst in a hurry, perhaps while they are on their way to the station or airport, etc.
In this instance, these customers will want to be able to access the information they require in as quick and stress-free a manner as possible. Therefore it's essential that mobile content providers structure their (mobile) sites efficiently, and the information contained within succinctly.
Keeping the above use case in mind, it would be counter-productive to bog the customer down with information about the latest deals, etc. whilst they are trying to navigate to what they want on a tiny screen. This doesn't preclude sales opportunities via mobile, but these would have to be very carefully considered — and considerately implemented; if a customer can't find what they want within a few seconds of accessing your mobile site, it's extremely likely they will give up in frustration.
Other Considerations
It's also worth noting that mobile internet access via handsets is prohibitively expensive for your average consumer, with only specialist data plans accommodating anything that would permit a reasonable amount of browsing time without extra cost.
Mobile content authors must also remember that they are authoring content for very small displays; listing paragraph after paragraph about how convenient your facilities are serves little purpose in a mobile context, and will only increase customer apathy and attrition.
Testing, Testing, 1... 2... 3...
As with any system which is accessed by a very wide audience, it's essential that you test your content regularly — especially during the early stages of implementation. When authoring mobile content, this can be extremely tricky to get right — because of the vast diversity of handsets (and therefore screen sizes) available. However, at this point in time (August 2007) it's reasonable to assume that many customers will be accessing your mobile content via a handset with a limited colour display, and an approximate screen resolution of 128x160 pixels (portrait orientation).
With this in mind, you could reasonably assume that you would get about 8-12 words per line (in a small font) on a full-width mobile web page. It's also reasonable to assume that content will take approximately 1 second to stream/download for every reasonably sized paragraph on a mobile web page.
There are also many pieces of mobile browser emulation software available on- and offline. But, as they have recently signed a deal with both Nokia and Sony Ericsson, Opera's Mini browser is a reasonably good benchmark to test against — and it's currently free to use. You can access the online version of Opera Mini here: http://www.operamini.com/beta/simulator/ (Java plug-in required)
IMPORTANT: Whilst the Opera Mini simulator is a convenient way to test your mobile content, you should bear in mind that it runs at a default resolution of more recent mobile phones, i.e. 240x320 pixels. Whilst most tech-savvy customers will be browsing at this sort of resolution today, it's critical that you engineer your content with the lower resolution (128x160 pixels) benchmark in mind. Also be aware that Opera Mini comes with several "helper" features, such as full page zoom, which can skew your perception of how your content is being presented more widely.
Mobile site for Bristol International Airport
As a quick postscript to this article, our dedicated mobile version of the Bristol International Airport (BIA) website went live on 5th October 2007. If you are interested to see how we've applied our thinking on the subject of mobile content to the BIA site, open up the web browser on your mobile phone and go to http://m.bristolairport.co.uk/
