Mobile Entertainment

1. A mobile site has to work across all popular devices.
This is the biggest problem facing anyone building a mobile internet site. It is far more difficult than covering the inconsistencies in a few web browsers. There are literally thousands of devices out there.

2. Don’t forget that not everyone has an N95.
Your demographic might have high-end handsets, but you wouldn’t want your site to fail when they show it to someone with an older device.

3. Make it colourful: white screens and black text are so 1998.
Just like old-skool websites, a technically inferior mobile site stands out like a sore thumb. A good site will reflect a brand accurately. So strive for a colour scheme that conveys the right message.

4. It’s got to be personal.
The mobile phone is designed primarily for two-way communication. Users will like your site more if they feel there are real people behind it. So present regular updates, request and respond to feedback, involve users in the evolution of your site. They will love you more for it.

5. A WAP site is not a website.
Clicking a link is easy with a 17-inch screen, keyboard and mouse. On a mobile, the screen is smaller, the page is vertically stacked and scrolling top to bottom can take what seems like a lifetime. So, make content bite-sized and easily navigable. Don’t fill a page with useless links.

6. Balance form and function.
A mobile site stacked full of graphics, rich text and widgets can take a long time to squeeze to a handset. So balance the graphics count with the desired speed of download. Yes, good content is worth downloading but it should never take three seconds to download a page just to have a cool banner at the top.

7. Go beyond wallpapers, ringtones and games.
There is now so much more to mobile sites than simple text and links. Interactive services, dynamic content, profiling, feedback, data acquisition, database integration, information revelations, discoverable content, user awards, the list goes
on and on. And it is all available with the right technology behind your site. So do it!

8. Don’t expect the same results across every device.
It would be great to know your site will look the same no matter what handset was being used to view it. Dream on. The fact is, with so many different screen sizes, font sizes, rendering quirks, markup capabilities and bugs out there, it is simply not possible to create an entirely consistent look. But don’t sweat. If your site renders differently on a Razr and a W800i, chances are your users won’t know any different.

9. Test, test, test...
...then test some more. With new devices arriving continually, it’s vital to stay on top of them – they don’t always adhere to shared standards. Or you could invest in a platform that takes care of new devices for you…

10. Deliver dynamically
Hard coded sites do not cut it. To manage all those multiple devices, dynamic sites are the only way to go. This will mean adapting graphics, choosing which mark-up to deliver, working around known device issues, and so forth. This does require a higher grade of site technology, but it’s worth it in the end.

Make it worthwhile
From the outset, users will have invested a significant amount of energy just finding your site by texting in or by entering a thumb blistering URL. If your site does not impress (or at least entice) from the homepage, users will switch off. So make this count most of all. Beyond that, follow the above rules. As long as your initial idea is interesting your users will respond positively!

* Wapple’s own mobile site creator, Wapple Canvas, is designed for non-technical users. It is accessible from anywhere in the world through a web browser.
www.wapple.net