W3C Mobile Web Seminar - 16 November 2006 - Paris, France
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. Or you can subscribe to a combined news feed for all SMM publications. Thanks for visiting!
The W3C Mobile Web Seminar being held today, 16 November 2006, in Paris, France is an important event bringing together authors, pioneers, visionaries, web designers, enthusiasts, and many others. Its theme is ‘Accessing the Web from Mobile Devices‘, in other words using the Web while on the move. W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (W3C-MWI) was launched in 2005 to improve the mobile experience on the Web. The W3C-MWI work is focused on developing best practices for “mobileOK” Web sites, and device information needed for content adaptation.
Philipp Hoschka, W3C Europe Deputy Director and Mobile Web Initiative Leader, is chairing the event. One of the most important building blocks in this is covered by Andrea Rus, MobileAware in a presentation, ‘Embracing Device Diversity‘ (PDF). One of the key processes in achieving Thematic Consistency, which is a prime objective of the One Web Principle, is what is called Adaptation.
He describes what is involved in even Simple Adaptation:
- DDWG (Device Description Working Group) research shows
- For basic adaptation, you don’t need a lot of context data
- To enable adaptation you need less than 20 properties
- Compared to the 100s of data on every device maintained by the professional solutions (e.g. MobileAware), a figure of 20 is probably achievable for ordinary people
- This data is available but…
- Located in different places (e.g. on manufacturer websites)
- In different formats (some in XML, some in UAProf, some in Text)
- Varying degrees of quality (some tested, some just guessed)
- Not available in real-time
-Have to download the data files
-Then read through them
He summarizes the benefits achieved through Embracing Device Diversity:
- Easy authoring for Mobile Web
- Basic device descriptions will enable basic content adaptation
- Greater contributions of content
- More people will be able to create content for the Mobile Web
- Content working on all devices
- More people will be able to access Web content via mobile devices
- Diversity benefits users
- People can use whatever mobile device suits their needs
- Diversity not a problem for authors
- Authors can write content using an adaptable mark-up language
- Perfect presentations for mobile specialists
- Professional companies (e.g. MobileAware) can provide enhanced device information and enhance adaptation capabilities
- Active mobile Web good for mobile markets
- More authors providing more content for more users will be good for the mobile Web and good for markets in the mobile Web
It all sounds pretty challenging for all but the professionals. Clearly the advantages to be gained are enormous. However a nagging question remains. Can Adaptation ever produce satisfying user experiences on all mobile devices? Very different screen resolutions imply very different abilities to handle information. Does mere thematic consistency deliver what is required? We wait to be convinced on that.
Tags: Mobile, Web, Mobile Web
 |
Go To Top
in the SEO Services Marketplace
BPWrap
November 17th, 2006 at 5:33 am
Dear Barry
thank you for your article following my presentation at the W3C Mobile Web Initiative seminar
With regards to a satisfying user experience, we believe in allowing standard web authors to create adaptable web applications that, taking into account contextual info such as the one provided by the Device Description Working Group, can best represent themselves on mobile devices.
Andrea
November 17th, 2006 at 6:30 am
My colleague, Andrea, does suggest that it is challenging for all but the professionals, but his point is that this should not be the case. Adaptation works (as several specialist companies can prove) but it is only accessible to those who can affort the professional solutions. What about the ordinary authors? The Web was created not by a small number of professional content/service providers, but by a mass of ordinary authors. To replicate this success in the mobile Web it will be necessary to make it easy to create content. And that means access to basic adaptation, which in turn implies access to basic device information. As chair of the DDWG, I am committed to working with my W3C partners to provide a technology that can make device descriptions available for adaptation solutions so that the Web can grow through adaptable authoring. This isn’t just about the mobile end users, this is also about the authors and everyone else in the Web community. We plan to do this work in the open, and we will welcome any constructive comments and contributions that people can offer to help us reach our goal.
Thank you for helping to spread the word.
—Rotan.
November 17th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Thanks for responding so positively, Andrea and Rotan. I certainly applaud the efforts of all those involved in W3C in pushing forward with these endeavours.
.. also sorry about the mistake, Andrea, which I have corrected.
November 19th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
[...] A Public Diary On The Way To A Patent « W3C Mobile Web Seminar - 16 November 2006 - Paris, France [...]
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 am
[...] One of the key processes in achieving Thematic Consistency, which is a prime objective of the One Web Principle, is what is called Adaptation. Adaptation of content to render it suitable for mobile devices is the current recommended practice. Andrea Rus of MobileAware in a presentation, ‘Embracing Device Diversity‘, at a W3C Mobile Web Seminar in November 2006 at Paris, France had a very good representation of that. [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Very good article. Is there any seminar that going to be held soon similar to this one?