The "Zen" Factor

Guidelines > Join the Revolution

So the last resource I found in my research was, both ironically and fittingly, Mobile First. More important for me was the offshoot of this concept: Bryan Rieger's Rethinking the Mobile Web. If you don't look at any other outside resource on the topic of mobile web development, please view his slideshow.

It is the ultimate in "Zen" thinking. What it boils down to is this: design your site for mobile browsers first, then add additional functionality for desktop browsers later. This forces you to focus your content and design. It sidesteps the issue of "undoing" styles put in place for desktop browsers using the limited functionality of mobile browsers. Instead, design for the mobile browsers first, and then have the more powerful desktop browsers "undo" the mobile styles. Remember the markup for targeting a mobile device when linking to an external style sheet from Media Type Mayhem?

<link media="handheld, only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)" href="iphone.css" type= "text/css" rel="stylesheet">

Let's think of this in a new way:

<link media="only screen and (min-device-width: 1024px)" href="desktop.css" type= "text/css" rel="stylesheet">

Woah. Talk about being a rebel. I bow down to Rieger for this one.

The W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices offers 60 guidelines. Rieger boils his suggestions down to 6. They are as follows:

mobile first
use well-structured, meaningful markup
the absence of support for @media queries is in fact the first @media query...
progressively enhance using JavaScript and @media queries
adapt content (especially images) appropriately for each device
compress content where possible, and don't include unnecessary data

Watch the slideshow to get the specifics.

I have to say, I definitely felt more relaxed and "Zen" viewing this presentation after weeks of wading through discussions of how to adapt web pages for use on mobile devices. It is still a design challenge, certainly, but there is something quite elegant about Rieger's approach.

The Road Ahead

Whatever approach you take or level of support you choose to offer in your quest to make your site more accessible to mobile users, I wish you the best of luck.

Remember:

Something is better than nothing
Start simple
Always continue learning