Déjà vu Mobile Web
Posted January 22nd, 2008 by admin
I vividly remember a day back in 1997 sitting in front of my computer coding the GUI for a Web-based corporate research portal. It annoyed me that I had to find a way to package so much information into a 640 x 480 parcel of techno-real-estate. And as I longed for more square footage, I could taste my dreams as bigger and bigger monitors propelled me into a world of designing for an 800 x 600 screen resolution. I was in pixel heaven – and then came the Mobile Web.
11 years later, with a good 30-40 percent of my online time spent via my Motorola Q and iPod Touch mobile devices, I’ve got a persistent “déjà vu” feeling that takes me back to the “old days” of the Web.
- HTML Emails: The corner has finally turned on being able to send out graphically-formatted HTML emails as a standard. It’s not easy to consume HTML formatted emails on my Q – at times it’s nearly impossible and I lose out on that particular communication.
- Heavy Graphics/Formatting: Broadband internet access finally beat out turtle slow dialup and websites became a rich-media experience. These same websites are usually a mess on a mobile browser.
- Screen Resolution: Forget 640 x 480 pixels – a good Mobile GUI has to fit on a fraction of that real-estate.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a HUGE fan of portable content – I just find it fascinating that as mobile technology continues to evolve, we are finding ourselves solving problems that we thought we already solved.
While I’m sure I’ll continue to get a sense of déjà vu, I’m glad we now have a collective set of lessons learned which means only good things for our mobile web user experiences.
