Resource Review 1: W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

In 2008, the W3C unveiled this website, a complete list of best practices for creating a mobile website. It covers everything from the Scope of a mobile website to User Goals to Advertising and much more. The website is extremely long, and unless you were actually thinking of building a mobile website with little or no experience, it would be hard to read it in its entirety. However, in addition to best practices, the authors at W3C offer significant commentary on mobile devices. For example, this excerpt is from the section on "Advantages":

"Moreover, with mobile devices appearing in all shapes and forms, and with a growing variety of features like location technology, cameras, voice recognition, touch screens etc, the Web can reach a much wider audience, and at all times in all situations. It has the opportunity to reach into places where wires cannot go, to places previously unthinkable (e.g. providing medical info to mountain rescue scenes) and to accompany everyone as easily as they carry the time on their wristwatches."

Also, important practical information is given in the website. For example, it specifies that it is best to code the site in XML or XHTML and to use CSS for styling. Information regarding browser configuration for mobile devices is present as well. Overall, this is an excellent resource that should be consulted if interested in creating a mobile site, or interested in mobile sites in general. Information architects working for libraries would surely benefit as well.

Finally, note the two mobile sites I found:

UW Madison Ebling Library for the Health Sciences Mobile Site

and

New York Public Library Mobile Site