Mobile Accessibility?

[RishadShaikh59]

How can I check whether my website is accessible on mobile phones? Is there a tool that allows you to check if your website is opening on different mobiles? Also, is it better to have a dedicated website for mobiles or the original developed in a manner that it appears ok on mobiles as well?

Cheers!

[CraigAddyman]

Try this http://validator.w3.org/mobile/

[DavidKauzlaric]

Honestly, mobile implementations can be tricky depending upon your website and what kind of content you serve up and how.

However, the best solution in my mind is to check what internet browser your users are using and if it detects a mobile browser, have it display a specific CSS stylesheet that modifies the existing website for mobile users. This is easy to do and in my opinion is the best solution because by creating a separate website you have to create double content, more sites to manage/maintain, you split rankings/possible links, etc...

It works the same way websites do that have IE6 or IE7 or IE8 special stylesheets, it detects what browser is requesting the website and displays the appropriate files based on that.

I hope this helps.

[mcglynn]

Regarding the question of testing a site on various mobile platforms, see this article about mobile emulators:

http://mobiforge.com/testing/story/a-guide-mobile-emulators

[richardbaxter]

Just my personal opinion - I do think more can be done to serve a mobile friendly stylesheet using mobile user agent detection on most websites. I really think that a "mobile site" on a separate domain is often unnessecary and with the right technical team, developing for cross platform compatibility can be achieved with a good front end / css developer.

Most of the time I wish this is what would happen - though in reality it's hard to find great examples in the wild. Do you guys agree here?

On a second point, I found today's strip on XKCD highly relevant to this discussion!

server_attention_span.png

[EnhancedPath]

Here is how we handle mobile: Check site stats, and if combined they don't total more % wise then the cut-off for traditional browser testing in general (5%, 10%, etc.), then treat mobile like you would any sub-threshold browser... that is, keep it in mind, test if you have the opportunity, but don't waste resources on it (caveat here obviously being a site that targets mobile, but if that were the case something tells me there would be a desk drawer full of devices to test with already). That being said, the mobile hits we see of any significance come in the form of iPhones, iPads, Andriod devices and rarely a Blackberry. Good news is, most of those devices have a browser that will render something close to a desktop browser. So it seems as these (still somewhat elusive) days of mobile approach, I think the days of thinking of mobile as a different beast that needs separate sites or exhaustive testing come closer to an end. Good news all around

[RishadShaikh59]

What would you say about investing in Mobile Applications for most popular platforms like Iphone, Ipad etc?

[IM_Learner]

Owing to the increasing popularity and usage of mobile devices worldwide, it's better to have a site developed for mobile phones with domain name m.example.com. Also, emphasis should not be on design but content. Mobile phone users are more interested in the content and design only supplements it. Having a contact form is of no value but a link to call the business is much more sensible.

As far as investing in mobile applications is concerned, you should come up with something innovative and should not do it just for the sake of doing it. You should plan something which engages user andif that's not possible due to the nature of your business, tie-up with some other business is an option.

[EnhancedPath]

I like App dev (I learned a bit of objective C to write my own iPhone apps), but one thing you learn very quickly in that space is that many have come before you, and this becomes more true every day. Simply making another "me too" app won't cut it. However, if you have something of value to offer your audience, something that requires (or would benefit) the native hooks that app development provides to you, than I would say (budget permitting), yea go for it. With Apples change in policy on what can generate an app, there may even be cheaper options avilable.

[ChrisMacNaughton]

A good tutorial to CSS for desktop and CSS for mobile on the same page is available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/dw_html5_pt1.html.

[Lauroca]

Try this, I hope it helps: http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN

[tomcraig86]

Yeah, you might even want to show mobile users some different content for example

[Thos003]

I find that a lot of quality sites will actually determine what my mobile platform is and then ask if I'd like the mobile version of the website. I prefer this to automatically taking me to a mobile version.

In my opinion, mobile sites are going to become less relevant as users move to better phones and better phones move to better browsers.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey, mobile is getting larger and I know that half of my web browsing (at least) is done on my smartphone and with android bringing smartphone features to the wider market then, it's just a matter of time before the world has the web in their pocket.

We tend to use Wordpress for most of our sites and if possible when we develop for clients. It is pretty SEO friendly out of the box and can easily be tweaked further if needs be. For mobile there are (free) plugins that allow you to serve a unique, simplified version of your site to mobile users and it takes about 5 minutes to download and install it.

For mobile device (apple/android/ipad etc) you can use WPTouch - it has a free version that does the job and then a pro version that provides  even more features. It has a load of AJAX and HTML5 goodness and is easily customised by non technical sorts through the control panel.

For those who are willing to dig into the code, it provides the same sort of foundation as a good theme and you can easily do more to brand it up and serve a spinky mobile version of your site with maybe a days worth of development. There are a bunch of others as well, onswipe is great for iPad so take a look around see what works best for you.

WPTouch Pro is the best one I have seen but there are similar plugins for Joomla, Drupal, Expression Engine etc so again, take a look and see what you can find.

Working on a bespoke site? Well, you could always take one of these solutions as a starting point, pick it apart and learn from it. Saves reinventing the wheel and some of these solutions are quite mature and robust now so again, there are options.

Hope it helps & give me a shout if any questions, I have been through the mill with this so happy to help. 
Marcus

[jaraca]

Very insightful comments. Thanks you al!

[sinaaaskar]

hi dears

i have some accessibility for mobile in my search console

my site in keywords "اخذ رتبه پیمانکاری" or "اخذ رتبه مشاور"  urls have some accessibility problem

for example Text too small to read or Clickable elements too close together

please help me to fix it

my site name is : "https://sabtorotbe.ir/"