Designing mobile websites for your firm
If you are running a business or if you have your own personal website, you need Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC in order to get a decent web page which can be displayed on mobile phones. There are several reasons why you should get the services of a web developer for your webpage to have a decent display on mobile phones. There are a lot of businesses and firms looking to create their websites. Even if they don’t want to sell or promote their products, a good business always has a website where people can interact with the owner. Therefore, a website is essential if you own a business. However, many people have done the same mistake of building their own website. Even if you just want to put the site’s name on your visiting card and if it is not that vital to the business, you need a professional site developer so that people can easily open the websites on their mobile phones. For businesses that need to promote their products and sell online, getting a professional company to design their website is vital to attract customers. If the site is good enough for the computer and not for the phones, you will not be able to gain a large proportion of customers as a lot of people are likely to visit your website through their smartphones.
How to get the best possible website design?
In order to get the best possible Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC for your website for the display on mobile phones, you need to have some preferences as well rather than just depending upon the web development company. Different businesses have different types of websites and you should see the type of your business and the material that you need on the site. If you only need to display content on your site to promote the product or create awareness of your new business, then you need to have various different preferences. If you need to sell your products online via E-commerce, then you need to get professional help from the companies which have been known to create quality E-commerce websites for mobile phones. Only the companies which have relevant experience in this particular field should be chosen in order to get the best design. The site should be good enough to develop an online selling web engine in order to make payment transactions.
Using websites for mobile phones for promotion
If you need effective promotion or growth for your business, you should consider designing a mobile website for you company effectively as this might just be the most vital part of the company. This shouldn’t be sacrificed and you need effective mobile web page developers to achieve this. There are several companies which specialize in Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC and you should choose the one which has all the relevant experience in previous web page designs. You should set your own preferences mixed with the preferences and the style offered by the developing company in order to get the best possible result for your business.
Designing mobile websites for your firm
If you are running a business or if you have your own personal website, you need Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC in order to get a decent web page which can be displayed on mobile phones. There are several reasons why you should get the services of a web developer for your webpage to have a decent display on mobile phones. There are a lot of businesses and firms looking to create their websites. Even if they don’t want to sell or promote their products, a good business always has a website where people can interact with the owner. Therefore, a website is essential if you own a business. However, many people have done the same mistake of building their own website. Even if you just want to put the site’s name on your visiting card and if it is not that vital to the business, you need a professional site developer so that people can easily open the websites on their mobile phones. For businesses that need to promote their products and sell online, getting a professional company to design their website is vital to attract customers. If the site is good enough for the computer and not for the phones, you will not be able to gain a large proportion of customers as a lot of people are likely to visit your website through their smartphones.
How to get the best possible website design?
In order to get the best possible Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC for your website for the display on mobile phones, you need to have some preferences as well rather than just depending upon the web development company. Different businesses have different types of websites and you should see the type of your business and the material that you need on the site. If you only need to display content on your site to promote the product or create awareness of your new business, then you need to have various different preferences. If you need to sell your products online via E-commerce, then you need to get professional help from the companies which have been known to create quality E-commerce websites for mobile phones. Only the companies which have relevant experience in this particular field should be chosen in order to get the best design. The site should be good enough to develop an online selling web engine in order to make payment transactions.
Using websites for mobile phones for promotion
If you need effective promotion or growth for your business, you should consider designing a mobile website for you company effectively as this might just be the most vital part of the company. This shouldn’t be sacrificed and you need effective mobile web page developers to achieve this. There are several companies which specialize in Mobile Web Site Design Washington DC and you should choose the one which has all the relevant experience in previous web page designs. You should set your own preferences mixed with the preferences and the style offered by the developing company in order to get the best possible result for your business.
How can effective mobile web page designs lead to the growth of businesses?
Businesses need several things in order to increase the sales revenue, brand loyalty and to spread awareness in the market. Building an attractive website is one of these things and a website with a decent browsing experience is always loved by the viewers. Therefore, you should create the best possible website in order to gain more popularity.
Mobile phones have been around for quite a while now and with technology, the features have increased in mobile phones. Back in the early years, these phones could not even open up low content sites and there were often crashes and lags. After some years, the phones were able to open certain low quality sites without lags and crashes. Today, with the latest smartphones, the users need a very detailed information on websites with optimal browsing experience. You just cannot design an ordinary site which only has written content on it to be displayed on a mobile phone. It just doesn’t work like that. In order to gain popularity today, you need to add effective designs and extensive features so that the viewers are attracted to the website. However, you need to optimize the browsing in mobile phones which is why heavy sites won’t give that optimal quality. A Mobile web developer Washington dc can help you overcome this by designing a high quality website for a mobile phone which is not heavy so that the viewer gets a good browsing experience.
Promotion
Online promotion is one of the things which are vital for new and existing businesses and recent statistics show that many new and upcoming businesses are using poorly designed websites. They don’t take into consideration the importance of mobile phones. Not all the viewers use these sites on their powerful computers, and with the newest smartphones arriving, a lot of people use their mobile phones as a primary device for internet browsing. Therefore, to get that cutting edge, Mobile web developer Washington dc may just be what you need for increasing the sales revenue. To get brand loyalty, you need innovation and creativity in order to make your website distinctive from other websites.
Converting viewers
Probably the major reason for many websites is to convert the users towards the business by putting in attractions and quality content. With a relatively poor design, your business is not going anywhere. There are several companies out there which specialize in web page designing and you should definitely check one of these companies out. One thing needs to be kept in mind and that is to make a separate website for mobile phones. You should not choose a computer site developer to make the same site for a mobile phone and only a mobile website developer, with relevant experience, should be chosen in order to get the best possible results. Most businesses don’t even know how vital phones are in converting customers as a lot of people use their mobile phones to browse the internet when they are bored or idle. This leads to them being attracted to the company by browsing several random sites and if your site is effective, the viewer will be converted towards the business and hence, you will get an additional customer. A Mobile web developer Washington dc with relevant experience might be vital for your company.
Hire a good company for mobile Web design Washington DC
Introduction:
Mobile web design Washington DC is becoming popular with each passing year. Investors especially in developed countries want to develop mobile sets which can help audience easy access to the websites. There are companies that aid the investors in creating site which is not online worthwhile but which has the potential to attract maximum traffic. The rating of the site is totally dependent upon the traffic to the site so online web designers use special tools to upgrade the site to be able to meet the modern standards of web designing.
How are mobile web design companies useful?
There are effective companies like Apollo Matrix in operation in Washington DC which have a large client data base because of the satisfaction level. They prepare the site for the clients in 2 months time. Then the customer support of the company is very important for the satisfaction of the clients. Clients want professionals to be available at all times for the troubleshooting of their problems. They also give special emphasis on the input of the client about the features he wants to put into the site to make it as user friendly as possible.
With advancement in technology, mobile web design Washington DC is becoming an integral part of mobile applications. Many websites are integrated with iPhone and Android to allow the users to open the website at their own convenience. Mobile web designing can turn out to be great marketing strategy. Many people may not visit a particular website, but when it is available as a mobile application, they may be inclined towards opening it more often. Mobile phones also save them the headache of turning on the Pc just to visit a single site. In this era, people want everything easily accessible because they are finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of time.
There are other mobile web design Washington DC companies which help their clients promote their brands by upgrading the graphics of the site and making it as attractive and eye catching as possible. The expertise of the professionals of the company plays a major role in the success of the site. There are special features of the site which need to be there to make it friendly to mobile users. If you are looking for such a company then you can easily surf the web and find out the contact details of the most accredited companies. Choosing the right company for web designing is important if you want to become a big time player and grab the top rank among the competing sites. There are now even some government sites that are integrated with mobile phones to make all the information easily accessible to the general public.
Last word:
The type of company or brand or service for which mobile web site is designed is not as important as the type of design. A focused web designing is the only way to attract the audience. People nowadays are really sharp. They know exactly what they want from a site and you need to provide them that in order to stay in the competition.
For a FREE quote, call 202-558-6175
5 Steps for a Successful QR Code Marketing Campaign
Hamilton Chan is CEO and founder of Paperlinks, which provides the leading QR code infrastructure for businesses. Codes generated through Paperlinks app can be scanned by the free Paperlinks iPhone app or by any QR code reader on any smartphone platform.
While the debate rages on whether QR codes are a passing fad or a marketing phenomenon, those little suckers continue to pop up all over the place. From product packaging to retail signs and even to food, almost any surface in the universe seems fair game for a QR code.
However, if brands deploy QR codes merely to claim they are using the latest social media marketing tool, then QR codes are doomed to fall in the “fad” bin, never to realize their full potential. The task for marketers is to use this interactive tool to deliver useful and meaningful experiences to their users.
So, how can you assess whether you are using QR codes to their full potential? Although very few QR marketing statistics exist, here are a few tips for businesses looking to deliver a meaningful QR code experience.
1. Define Your Purpose
The first thing to realize is that QR codes can be as much about utility as they are about marketing. The more your QR code enhances or streamlines the lives of customers, the more engagement you can expect. As such, the most important step in making your QR campaign a success is to think clearly about the purpose of your code.
- Is the purpose to provide an instructional video, a photo catalog of products, contact information or product suggestions?
- Or are you looking to incentivize mobile purchasing behavior through coupons and loyalty rewards?
- What is the advertiser hoping to garner – an email address, social media engagement, a phone call?
- Are you seeking to provide information about a single product or about the entire brand line?
The clearer you are about the purpose of your campaign, the easier it will be to discern whether your goals have been achieved.
2. Call On Your Customers
Now that you have defined your purpose, craft a customer call to action. Think of your QR code as a doorway, only you need to explain what’s hidden behind the door. The brief text sitting next to your code should be the world’s shortest elevator pitch.
For instance, you’ll see high scan rates if your code says, “Scan this code for an exclusive gift” or “Scan this code for our lowest price.” Be sure to explain any incentive associated with the code truthfully — it will increase trust, consumer interaction and the overall return on your campaign.
3. Design and Usability Is Key
Understand that looks matter. Ideally, opt for a designer code rather than a black-and-white checker box. Designer codes earn higher scan-through rates, look better on your materials, and even provide an element of security to assure users that this is indeed the brand’s QR code (and hasn’t been somehow covered over).
In addition, the design of the mobile landing page is critical. The cardinal sin in QR code campaigns is directing users to your desktop website. Not only does a desktop site provide little added value over what a user could have obtained without the code, but the site usually looks and functions terribly on a mobile phone. If you do not have a mobile-friendly version of your website, consider using one of the many available tools to create one. Using one of these platforms makes it easier to update content in real time and track campaign analytics.
4. Measuring Scans
The most important metric of a QR campaign should not be the number of daily scans. Rather, the length of engagement time that your code is generating should be a marketer’s primary indicator of campaign success.
If people are spending two to three (or more) minutes on a link, the campaign is a success. The power of a QR code is to transform the user experience from a “quick glance” to a “deep dive.” When users spend a lot of time on your QR site, it shows that you have developed something captivating — a brand worth the interaction.
On the flip side, having a low number of scans should not discourage the advertiser, although generating zero scans is a definite red flag. If no one is scanning the code, it’s likely that something is wrong its scanability, or that its placement is not conducive to scanning (think high-up ads on the subway).
Another thing to keep an eye on is the number of scans over time. If your QR code has been constant displayed (e.g., in your retail window or on your cashier counter), you should see a long tail of interactivity as people continue to engage with your code. Achieve this by providing fresh content and incentives. Unlike other marketing vehicles (TV commercials and newspaper ads) that typically only generate one big spike in impressions, QR codes allow businesses a consistent promotional tier. If the number of scans drops to zero after the first week, this is a sign that there wasn’t enough allure to the experience.
5. Social Metrics
Finally, businesses should look at the points of interaction beyond the QR code experience to judge the success of a campaign. Did a business receive more hits to its website, more followers on Twitter, more fans on Facebook? While trying out the latest high-tech marketing tools is fun, we must ultimately be driven by results.
The QR code experience is limited only by your imagination. The more creatively you can provide a meaningful customer experience, the more interaction your QR code campaign will enjoy.
QR codes provide metrics by tying real-world marketing (outdoor signs, magazine ads, etc.) to the mobile web. By being imaginative, purposeful and experimental with campaigns, advertisers and consumers alike can reap rich QR rewards.
10 Excellent Tools for Testing Your Site on Mobile Devices
With the ever-increasing sales of smartphones and the burgeoning tablet market starting to skyrocket, coupled with far greater access to more robust mobile data networks, the internet is now being accessed by our users in a multitude of new ways.
The huge range of mobile devices used to browse the web now means you really have to consider making your site mobile-compatible.
But how do you go about it? Testing your site on mobile devices can be time-consuming and expensive due to the vast number of different mobile devices.
Fear not, because there are some handy tools available at your disposal for making sure that your website renders appropriately on the Mobile Web. This article shares and discusses 10 such tools.
1. iPhoney
An excellent free iPhone tester, iPhoney isn’t exactly an emulator, but allows developers to create 320x480px websites for use on the iPhone. It allows you to test images and code in a pixel-perfect Apple-Safari-powered environment, with all the normal features including Portrait and Landscape modes, fullscreen, zoom and plugins.
2. W3C mobileOK Checker
This checker is a web-based automated validation tool that checks to see how mobile-device-friendly your website is. The tests are checked against the W3C mobileOK Basic Tests specification developed by W3C.
3. iPad Peek
This handy web-based tool allows you to see how your websites look when rendered on the iPad. It’s recommended that you use a WebKit-based browser such as Apple Safari or Google Chrome to have as accurate a simulation as possible — or at the very least, a CSS3-capable browser that supports transformation properties (like Opera) because it uses them to render the page in Portrait mode.
4. Modify Headers Add-on for Firefox
There are add-ons for Firefox that can manipulate the data sent to servers to make it seem as if the user agent is browsing on a mobile device, even when they’re not. To do this, you need an add-on called Modify Headers (for Firefox).
Once you have downloaded and installed this add-on, the new options, Tools > Default User Agent and Tools > Modify Headers should appear in your browser.
To emulate browsing on a mobile device, you need to find the User Agent Profile (UAProf) value of your mobile device, which can be found with a quick search on Google for “user agent” followed by the model of your phone (e.g. see Google results for “user agent ipad“). Alternatively, check out this list of UAProf values.
Once you have located the UA Profile value for the phone you want, enter it into the Modify Header dialog box, and bingo, you will see how it’s like to browse from that device.
For Google Chrome, you can try out the User-Agent Switcher extension.
For a browser-independent desktop application that works on virtually any internet-enabled app, try out Fiddler Web Debugger that lets you modify HTTP requests, among other things.
5. Adobe Device Central CS5
As part of the latest Adobe Creative Suite, Device Central emulates the operation of mobile devices on your desktop allowing you to test HTML and Flash from the comfort of your desktop.
To open a page or site, select Device Profiles > Browse Devices, then right-click and choose Add To Test Devices. Now that you’ve added a device, simply go to File > Open (for local testing) or File > Open URL (for remote testing).
Though far from being free, if you’re a professional designer or developer, you’ll have a high chance of being able to access Adobe’s creative suite of applications.
6. Google Mobilizer
Google Mobilizer is a simple web tool that lets you input a web page address and then makes the page mobile-web-friendly by trimming the content down to its bare essentials. This is an excellent tool for seeing where you can make performance optimizations on your site.
7. Gomez
Gomez mobile readiness test gives you a score between 1 and 5 based on an analysis of over 30 proven mobile web development techniques, ranging from stylesheet use (e.g. media queries) to caching techniques and standards-compliant code. The results are displayed in an easy-to-understand document that offers advice on how to make your site better.
Unfortunately, to be able to test your site, you must enter in a bunch of information including your email address, country, zip code, and phone number.
8. MobiReady
In the same vein as Gomez, MobiReady is another online testing site that allows you to enter a URL so that it can perform a set of evaluations, including Page Test, Markup Test and Site Test of the web page. This is a slightly more detailed version of Gomez above and provides a comprehensive test result page including dotMobi compliance, W3C mobileOk tests, device emulators, detailed error reports, HTTP tests and a code checker.
However, the results aren’t as succinct as Gomez’s results, a disadvantage when it comes to presenting your information to your less technically astute clients/employers.
9. DotMobi Emulator
The dotMobi emulator gives you a live preview of your site from a (fairly small, to be honest) range of different mobile phones. This mobile testing tool is great if you need to test your page on older mobile devices.
What can be annoying to potential users of this tool is that it requires the Java browser plugin for it to work.
10. Opera Mini Simulator
With over 120 million smartphones sold that has Opera pre-installed[1] and an edition available for almost any OS, making sure that your site works on Opera Mini (the mobile version of the Opera web browser) is a good practice to include in your testing workflow.
Thankfully, Opera has obliged us by offering a free web-based emulator for testing and evaluating your web design on a mobile device that uses Opera Mini.
This tool requires the Java browser plugin to function.
How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App
You’ve been depressed for like a year now, I know. All the hardcore Objective-C developers have been having a hay-day writing apps for the iPhone. You might have even tried reading a tutorial or two about developing for the iPhone, but its C—or a form of it—and it’s really hard to learn.
I don’t want to say that you should give up on the objective: you can get it eventually. But in the meantime, there is something else that you can do.
You can create a native app that lives with all the other apps, and for the most part, it’s going to be a pitch-perfect imitation.
You can do this with the skill set you probably already have: HTML(5), CSS, and JavaScript.
I’ll show you how to create an offline HTML5 iPhone application. More specifically, I’ll walk you through the process of building a Tetris game.
Offline?
What am I talking about when I say “offline”? Well, it means that we have a custom icon, a custom startup screen, a native look-and-feel, and you can use the app even when the phone isn’t connected to the Internet.
The app should be as functional as it can when it is offline, just like normal native mobile apps.
This is a tutorial specifically for iPhones but most of these techniques apply to all phones that have HTML5-capable browsers.
Yeah, I mean it, check out the following image. It has no URL bar and no navigation at the bottom. It looks just like a native mobile application.
Prework
You are going to need access to a server where you can change the HTTP Headers on your files. This is because we need to take advantage of HTML5′s offline caching (more on this later down the page).
Apache does this really well and you can just add something to a .htaccess file and it will just work. Here’s a tutorial on modifying HTTP headers using htaccess.
The other thing you need to do is to enable the debug bar in Safari’s web browser on your iPhone unit. Go to the Settings.app > Safari > Developer on your iPhone, then turn on the debug console. This will help you spot potential JavaScript errors.
Once you’ve built your app, you should turn this off so that you will get the full experience when testing your HTML5 iPhone app.
About the App
Icon and Startup Screen
The icon needs to be 57px x 57px.
The iPhone will round the corners of your icon, create a dropshadow, and add a shine to whatever icon you use.
It should be in PNG or JPG format.
Here is what I used for the tetris game.
The startup screen needs to be 320px x 460px and should also be in PNG or JPG format.
Here is what I used for the startup screen.
Some tips before you start
Stay small, sparse and simple.
- Small: This is mobile app development so even though you are caching your stuff, it’s still a smart idea to keep your file sizes lean.
- Sparse: You should try to keep the amount of files you deal with as low as possible.
- Simple: Start with a few simple ideas and execute it. By keeping your scope small, you can get things done faster.
Application Cache
This is a new standard, you can read the spec here.
Application caching allows browsers to determine in advance all the files a web page will need for the web page to work.
It will cache those files (to a fault, sometimes). The syntax of this file is simple: just list the locations of your files in either absolute (e.g.http://yourwebserver.com/picture.png) or relative to the manifest file (/picture.png). The browser will keep those files offline.
You can also list a few URLs that should not be cached, but this isn’t pertinent for our offline app (if you’re interested, read about this in the documentation).
One tricky part to this whole thing is that the manifest (the list of files that need to be cached offline) has to be passed with a filetype Header set to text/manifest. That is why you need access to a web server that can set HTTP headers.
Screen Size
A quick note when designing your application: When you are in app mode, you have a screen size of 320px x 460px. When you are in web mode, it has a screen size of 320px x 356px. This can affect the user interface of your offline HTML5 app.
Here you can see the difference side by side.
HTML
It’s a real browser so your HTML is exactly the same. The iPhone browser is also in the forefront of HTML5, so dig into the spec.
For more in-depth detail, check out the Safari Developer’s corner:
Let’s get coding
The app starts by defining your markup. here is the markup for my Tetris app.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html manifest="tetris.manifest">
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="user-scalable=no, width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0"/>
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="iphon_tetris_icon.png"/>
<link rel="apple-touch-startup-image" href="startup.png" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="tetris.css" type="text/css" media="screen, mobile" title="main" charset="utf-8">
<title>offline Tetris</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Put your Markup Here -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="tetris.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
First, notice the Doctype. Isn’t HTML5 awesome?
The manifest="cache.manifest" property on the <html> tag is how the browser knows that we want to cache this web page offline.
There’s proprietary Apple markup on our HTML5 page. A brief explanation of each:
apple-mobile-web-app-capable: This is another tip-off that we want to be an offline app.apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style: This hides the status bar, and nav bar when the app is offline.apple-touch-icon:This is the pointer to the image that want to be the icon.apple-touch-startup-image: This is a url pointing to the startup image.
Also note that you should put CSS at the top and JavaScript at the bottom (best practices still apply here).
CSS
It’s almost the same as a normal web page. There are some specific -webkit CSS rules that you can use that do some really cool things like animation, but this is a quick-and-dirty guide and that’s outside of the scope of this article.
The CSS is just Plain Jane.
body {
overflow:hidden;
background: #d7d7d7;
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
#tetris {
width: 320px;
height: 460px;
background:#000;
}
The style is really just to the div element on our web page to make sure it fits in the iPhone’s viewport properly.
JavaScript
I used a modded version of a JavaScript from Dalton Ridenhour; I found it on Github. The JS was written originally for a normal web browser. The only modifications I had to make was to support not having a keyboard.
In general, JS functions work just fine on the iPhone—there are exceptions though. Think about something like a mouseover, the event exists on the iPhone, but I am not sure how helpful it is when you don’t have a standard pointing device (such as a mouse). Quirksmode posted an article about events on the iPhone that is really helpful.
When you have all of that, you can test it out but opening your index.html in an iPhone, and you should be able to see everything work.
Then, next step is to server it from an actual webserver that can set the proper settings on the cache.manifest.
Then you could be able to add it to the home screen and have all the extras, and see the offline mode.
You can see a working version I have set up at:
Bonus Section: Offline Data
Along with the ability to keep files that are needed offline, you can also store user data in an offline database. There are two major APIs for per user and/or per page data. The first is localStorage. localStorage, is an easy to use key-value store with a dead simple API.
localStorage.dataToStore = 5; console.log(localStorage.dataToStore); // 5
You can use this for storing the user’s score, for example.
The second is actually an offline SQL engine, a webdatabase. The APIs are a little more advanced. Here is a little of you will see.
// Try and get a database object
var db;
try {
if (window.openDatabase) {
db = openDatabase("NoteTest", "1.0", "HTML5 Database API example", 200000);
if (!db)
alert("Failed to open the database on disk. This is probably because the version was /
bad or there is not enough space left in this domain's quota");
} else
alert("Couldn't open the database. Please try with a WebKit nightly with this feature enabled");
} catch(err) { }
// Check and see if you need to initalize the DB
db.transaction(function(tx) {
tx.executeSql("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WebkitStickyNotes", [], function(result) {
loadNotes();
}, function(tx, error) {
tx.executeSql("CREATE TABLE WebKitStickyNotes (id REAL UNIQUE, note TEXT, timestamp /
REAL, left TEXT, top TEXT, zindex REAL)", [], function(result) {
loadNotes();
});
});
});
// Insert a test Note.
var note = {
id: "1",
text:" This is a test note",
timestamp: "112123000",
left:10,
top:10,
zIndex:2
};
db.transaction(function (tx)
{
tx.executeSql("INSERT INTO WebKitStickyNotes (id, note, timestamp, left, top, zindex) VALUES /
(?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)", [note.id, note.text, note.timestamp, note.left, note.top, note.zIndex]);
});
// Get all the notes out of the database.
db.transaction(function(tx) {
tx.executeSql("SELECT id, note, timestamp, left, top, zindex /
FROM WebKitStickyNotes", [], function(tx, result) {
for (var i = 0; i < result.rows.length; ++i) {
var row = result.rows.item(i);
var note = new Note();
note.id = row['id'];
note.text = row['note'];
note.timestamp = row['timestamp'];
note.left = row['left'];
note.top = row['top'];
note.zIndex = row['zindex'];
if (row['id'] > highestId)
highestId = row['id'];
if (row['zindex'] > highestZ)
highestZ = row['zindex'];
}
if (!result.rows.length)
newNote();
}, function(tx, error) {
alert('Failed to retrieve notes from database - ' + error.message);
return;
});
});
Wrap Up
There is lot that can be done with offline HTML apps. Games, like tetris, are even possible, but you would probably want to consider what you want to do and make sure its right for an offline app. Quake 3 Arena, probably not. A to-do list app, definitely.
Let thousands apps bloom!
Building Mobile Web Apps the Right Way: Tips and Techniques
Mobile web apps are useful alternatives to native apps for mobile devices. These days, Android-based products and iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad all come packed with fantastic mobile browsers (Mobile Chrome and Mobile Safari respectively), and Opera fans can install their preferred browser, too.
From a desktop point of view, these products make browsing just about the most pleasurable experience possible. CSS3 transitions, beautifully crafted HTML5 and embellishments mean their users get the highest possible browsing experience (assuming the content being viewed has been crafted with care and consideration).
Their mobile counterparts equally do not disappoint. Fast-loading JavaScript, combined with equally impressive CSS3 and HTML rendering mean that your mobile browser can provide you with as rich an experience as a native app.
Being mobile and Web-based, there are obviously going to be performance concerns. One advantage of native over Web-based mobile apps is that you download much of the interface when you download the app originally, so you are only really loading relevant data when you use them. In addition, native apps can take advantage of the platform’s integrated development features (such as standard UIs), which can further aid performance.
Web-based mobile apps work in the same way as a website would, i.e., you load the content of a page when a user requests to view that page. We can use the browser cache to make things speedier for users with primed caches, but all graphics, images, scripts and data are loaded from your web server as opposed to being on the client’s device (in the case of most native apps).
Mobile Web App vs. Mobile Website
These days, more and more online products come with a mobile version, which is generally a slightly scaled-down version of a main website optimized for small screens (see Amazon, Twitter, and the BBC homepage, for example). A mobile version of a site often takes a site’s content and outputs it so the information can be consumed more easily on a mobile device.
CSS media queries and other feature-detection techniques can be used to determine certain characteristics of a device or browser viewport, which gives developers the option to use the same code to present content at its best for the situation in which it is being viewed.
Mobile web apps are similar in a certain respect, because you want the content to be enjoyed and digested as easily as possible.
I would argue, though, that a mobile web app differs from a mobile version of a website due to it being tailor-made for the mobile platform. The UI will generally be more customized, and will include more mobile-device-centric user interfaces, as can see from the following examples.
At a quick glance of the mobile web apps above, you can see how the user interfaces are more customized to suit the mobile platform. They use bigger hit areas optimized for fingertips, making them easier to use. The YouTube and iPlayer examples use more grid-based button layouts, presenting controls within the app in a similar way as native mobile apps do.
As an example, shown below, you can see the similarities between the two forms of apps and their UI elements by comparing the YouTube and iPlayer web apps, and the Sky Sports News native app on the iPhone.
Mobile as a Platform
We’ve all got a mobile device these days — whether it’s a smartphone like the iPhone or a touchscreen tablet like the iPad — and most of us in the industry will use many different features of our mobile devices for various purposes.
It’s now easier for a greater proportion of people to access the Mobile Web, and that should be an important consideration when you decide to launch a product in this space.
Mobile design and data delivery differs from the traditional desktop environment; let’s talk about that next.
Desktop vs. Mobile
Here’s a quick breakdown of the big differences between desktop and mobile platforms:
- Mobile device hardware is smaller and generally tends to have lower hardware resources than desktops/laptops.
- Smaller screens bring about different design considerations and challenges.
- Touchscreen technology introduces new interaction concepts that differ from traditional input devices (keyboard and mouse).
- With a mobile device, internet connectivity is not always as reliable as a hard-wired broadband connection, which means internet connectivity is a concern and data transfer could be significantly slower.
Although these sound as if they are hurdles to get over, with careful thought and consideration, there’s no reason why they should be.
Touchscreen technology is exciting. The smaller screen design will really make you think about how to get the user to interact with your mobile web app in the most satisfying way possible.
What we should really be doing is looking at the list of differences above and seeing opportunities to deliver our content in a different way.
Building mobile web apps will be a paradigm shift from traditional web development and web design.
Mobile is the platform that people can have with them all of the time. That’s an exciting concept.
In the next sections, we will discuss development/design considerations, as well as concepts and techniques for building mobile web apps.
Keep File Sizes Small
When you don’t have sufficient WiFi coverage, data connection will usually be slower or non-existent. For any mobile product — whether it’s a native app that relies on data transfer, a mobile web app, or a mobile version of a site — concerns regarding internet connectivity means you should try to cut down on the amount of data that your user has to download.
Quicker experiences are generally more satisfying and are therefore more usable. We can speed things up by keeping files smaller in size and reducing the number of files we serve to users.
Remember:
- Slower download speeds = longer loading times
- Smaller and fewer files = quicker loading times
It’s our responsibility to balance the above equations so that we create a beautiful-looking product that still functions responsively.
Dealing with Image Performance
We want to try to get rid of as many images as we can. For the images we keep, we want them to be as lightweight as possible.
If images are a necessity for particular parts of your mobile web app design, then there are a couple of extra steps we can use to trim off any excess fat from your files.
Use Adobe Fireworks for Transparent PNGs
I have to admit that I don’t really use Fireworks that much these days, as Illustrator and Photoshop more than meet my design requirements, but Fireworks does have one powerful ace up its sleeve. If you want to use PNGs with alpha transparency, then unfortunately, Photoshop will only allow you to export 24-bit PNGs (PNG-24), which are heftier than 8-bit PNGs.
Using Fireworks, we can save in 8-bit PNG, even when the image requires alpha transparency. In my experience, this can remove 20% or more off the file size with little to no loss in quality.
All you have to do is open up your 24-bit PNG, then, in the PNG compression settings panel in Fireworks, set it to 8-bit with alpha transparency, and then export. Voila, you have much smaller images to use!
Using ImageAlpha
If Fireworks sounds like too much of a bother, check out ImageAlpha. Once installed, all you need to do is drag your images into its main window and then tweak the export settings to remove excess data from the images.
Both techniques are very quick to implement. I would recommend using them for all projects, not just for mobile devices, because they’ll speed up web page loading timesfor your users due to reduced file sizes.
To learn more about using PNGs in web designs, see the Web Designer’s Guide to PNG Image Format.
Leveraging CSS3
Mobile web browsers these days are pretty advanced. Android devices use a mobile version of Google Chrome, whilst the iPhone does the same with Apple’s Safari. Some mobile devices come with mobile Opera and others allow you to install a browser of your choice such as mobile Firefox. So we’re talking about some pretty good browsers in terms of CSS3 and HTML5 feature support.
CSS3 allows us to render things through code that would previously have required an image. We can use color gradients, draw rounded corners, create drop shadows, apply multiple backgrounds to HTML elements, and more — all of which can help improve performance and decrease development times.
If you look at a typical application interface via your smartphone, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find CSS3 being used.
By using CSS3, we can reduce data transfer — particularly images and possibly excess HTML markup. We let the browser and the device do the work to render the interface more quickly.
Want the Apple-esque toolbar highlighted above? All you need is the following style rule (which uses CSS3) rather than creating and loading a CSS background image (which is how we’d traditionally do this with CSS2).
.toolbar {
width: 100%;
height: 44px;
background-color: #000000;
border-top: 1px solid #4B4B4B;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #2F2F2F, #151515 50%, #000000 51%, #000000);
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #2F2F2F, #151515 50%, #000000 51%, #000000);
background-image: -WebKit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#2F2F2F), color-stop(50%, #151515), color-stop(51%, #000000), to(#000000));
background-image: linear-gradient(top, #2F2F2F, #151515 50%, #000000 51%, #000000);
}
Here’s what it looks like when applied to a div element viewed in Safari (desktop):
Now, instead of an image that won’t scale well — i.e., if the toolbar’s height needs to be increased, a CSS background image will not scale with it — we have a device-rendered HTML element with a gradient that will scale and adapt nicely for different device orientations and sizes.
It’s true that older browsers such as IE on a Windows Mobile device won’t necessarily render the gradient, but we can circumvent that problem by using the background-color within the same CSS rule as a fallback mechanism. This means all browsers capable of the gradient will show the gradient, but those that can’t will show the solid color instead (which we set to black, #000000).
All users still get to enjoy your mobile web app interface, but older devices just have the extra layer of gloss removed. This technique is called progressive enhancement.
HTML Canvas
If you fancy a little more work, then you can improve speed even further using thecanvas element. Although using CSS gradients eradicates the loading of a physical image, that method still causes the device’s rendering engine to construct an image in the browser, which can result in a performance reduction depending on the device and browser.
By using the canvas element and some JavaScript, we can get the browser to draw the gradient without rendering it like an image. This technique can possibly be speedier on certain browsers, even if we need to use JavaScript. At the very least, usingcanvas is another tool you can use for drawing if it can’t be done in CSS3 or if you find that it’s a better option for performance.
To create the same toolbar above, first we need to create a canvas element in the HTML document like so:
<canvas id="toolbar"></canvas>
Then, with JavaScript, we can use the following script to produce the desired gradient on the canvas:
var canvas = document.getElementById("toolbar");
var context = canvas.getContext("2d");
var gradient = context.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 0, 44);
gradient.addColorStop(0,'#2F2F2F');
gradient.addColorStop(0.5,'#151515');
gradient.addColorStop(0.51,'#000000');
gradient.addColorStop(1,'#000000');
context.fillStyle = gradient;
context.fillRect(0, 0, 300, 44);
This is what the above code looks like:
Hardware Acceleration
When it comes to mobile web apps, Apple’s mobile devices are a major consideration that we need to be aware of because of the current popularity of the iPhone and iPad. Safari 5 (on all platforms) brings hardware acceleration into the mix. If you’re not familiar with the feature, Apple describes it as follows:
“Safari supports hardware acceleration on Mac and PC. With hardware acceleration, Safari can tap into graphics processing units to display computing-intensive graphics and animations, so standards like HTML5 and CSS3 can deliver rich, interactive media smoothly in the browser.”
Essentially this means that Safari can use extra hardware device capabilities to enhance the rendering of graphics and transitions, which in turn promises faster user interface performance.
Other browsers have added support for hardware acceleration, too — including Firefox 4, Chrome 10 and Opera 11 — so hopefully we’ll see them integrated into their mobile versions soon, providing silky smooth transitions and lightning quick graphics-rendering for all of us.
Be Cautious of CSS3 Rendering Performance
As brilliant as CSS3 is, certain properties can slow down a web page. WebKit-based browsers, for instance, really seem to struggle with shadows in particular, so just be careful that you don’t apply too many of these to elements of your interface until the issue has been resolved.
As another example, the opacity property can also cause problems with Safari’s hardware-accelerated rendering, so it’s probably worth avoiding over-use of this.
One workaround to the opacity property performance issue is the ability to use RGBa value notation to declare CSS color properties in modern browsers; the significant factor of this being that the a in RGBa stands for alpha. By declaring a color using RGB values, then appending one more value, we can have full control of the transparency of an element without having to use the opacity CSS property.
Instead of:
.myElement {
background-color: #000000;
opacity: 0.75;
}
We could use:
.myElement {
background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);
}
We can achieve the same results for our HTML element by using RGBa values, so when you want to add any transparency to HTML elements, make sure you’re using the most suitable method.
Consider the Offline User Experience
Finally, let’s briefly discuss HTML5 offline data storage.
Making use of local data storage means that once our data has been downloaded to the device, we can use a manifest file which allows us to cache certain files locally. What this means is that when users have no connection, we can continue saving data client-side.
Offline storage opens up a lot of opportunities. For instance, we can now try to maintain the user’s experience even when internet connectivity drops rather than having to defend against the issues posed by the possibility of internet interruptions.
We’re not going to be able to allow data downloads from our server when there’s no connection, but at least we can provide the opportunity to store options and user-decisions on the client’s side, which we can then synchronize back to the server once the internet connection is restored.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article has shown you some best practices, tips, and techniques you can use to design and build quick-loading and beautiful user interfaces for your mobile web products. If you were on the fence, I also hope that this encourages you to get started with mobile web app development.
Some people might think that mobile web apps are not as sexy as fully-fledged native apps for iOS or Android. However, the biggest advantage of mobile web apps is that we are able to build them to be platform-independent — we can maintain independence from devices and operating systems. We can make web apps without the need for extra developer toolkits and platform-specific SDKs, and thus we can still use our everyday development tools.
Adobe on Mobile Flash: “No Mas”
It was a valiant fight, but the outcome was inevitable. Sometimes, you just have to put the gloves down and admit defeat.
This week, Adobe officially announced that it was going to cease the development of Flash for mobile browsers. This move definitively sends the future of mobile development and the creation and deployment of mobile content towards HTML5.
Of course, most people saw this coming. The bulky Flash Player system, which at its creation was designed for desktop computers, has struggled (to say the least) in its transition to mobile. Major mobile developers noted this and almost unanimously supported HTML5 development.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple were all rooting for HTML5, especially Apple. In fact, the late Steve Jobs refused to support Flash for the iOS version of Apple’s Safari browser, saying that “Flash was designed for PCs using mice.”
“HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively,” says Danny Winokur, Adobe’s Vice President and General Manager. “This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.”
He adds, “We are excited about this, and will continue to work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”
Following the upcoming update of mobile Flash with Flash Player 11.1, the software company will discontinue the development of the product.
Flash will always have a place, though. It will remain, indefinitely, a major part of the Web for PC users; in fact, the company is already working on Flash Player 12.
“These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have the most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video,” says Winokur.
Maybe it sounds a little bit (a lot) like a concession speech, but Adobe can still hang its head high-ish. The mobile Web is the next big transition for the Internet, and it is unavoidable that there will be some casualties. There is an important lesson to be learned here, both by Adobe and future mobile Web developers. By doubling down on PC development, Flash can maintain its widespread presence on the PC-based Web, which is still where the majority of users remain (for now).
Are Tablets Taking Over E-Commerce?
When the iPad was originally announced, the critics were harsh, and most people didn’t seem to see the purpose of yet another handheld device that didn’t have the same computing power as a laptop, nor the portability (or ability to make calls) like a smartphone.
Now, studies show that for iPad owners (or owners of another comparable tablet device, which is less likely at the moment), the device is the standby for most of the users’ computing needs, especially on the Web.
For reading, browsing and multimedia consumption, owners are becoming more and more accustomed to picking up their tablets instead of phones or laptops. And, as recent trends have begun to show, these devices are also beginning to be the first choice of owners for online shopping, as well.
Mobile advertising company Jumptap, in conjunction with comScore, recently released Wave Two of its ongoing research project titled Understanding Mobile Audience, which “shows that tablet owners are almost as likely as PC and laptop owners to use their tablet device to make purchases.” According to the study, a whole 63 percent of tablet owners make purchases on their devices; this is compared to 83 percent of PC owners who shop on their computers.
The news of the tablet influence on e-commerce isn’t new. In fact, it’s been covered at Website Magazine before (a couple of times). However, there are still some important statistics the report brings to light concerning the tablet revolution.
It’s clearly a younger set of users (those hip Millennials) that are shopping on tablet devices. Of “young” tablet owners, between the ages of 18-34, almost 80 percent made purchases on their tablets; the middle-aged set (35-54) saw about 50 percent buying things on the devices, and just 43 percent of the 55+ crowd made tablet-based purchases. These are very similar to trends that we see with smartphone usage, as well. So far, the top three most popular purchases on tablets have been event tickets, daily deals (specifically from sites like Groupon) and clothing/apparel.
Perhaps the most curious finding in the study dealt with security. While most users seem to agree that they find PCs safer than mobile devices, many of them also feel that tablets are, for some reason, more secure than smartphones.
Also, though they are making these purchases on mobile devices, many of them prefer to shop on them at home.
It looks like these trends will be absolutely essential for e-commerce companies to pay attention to, because tablet commerce will probably be the future of online shopping now that Barnes & Noble and Amazon are both coming out with their own (more affordable) iPad competitors. Amazon, particularly, seems poised to jump directly into marketing for the tablet, altering much of their website in anticipation for the release of the Kindle Fire.
