RE: URLs and access issues

Using a 'modified' URL isn't any good in print media, or other forms of
advertising/distributing a URL.

Imagine a link sent to both your PC and your mobile device in an email.
The URL should ideally work on both devices.

If the URL is printed on a billboard for example, who knows what devices
will be used to access it, but you wouldn't want to use up space and
confuse things by listing more than one URL.

I think the determination of the browser context should be as dynamic as
possible, but it would be good if the user can override any choices made
automatically for them.

Future browsers may have a way of expressing and storing user
preferences.  
In the meantime however, these preferences could be expressed by the
user interacting with the site e.g. clicking on a 'text only'
button/link if that is what the user wants, and having the server resend
content taking the user's preference into account.  These user
preferences could be 'remembered' in a session or in cookies if that was
appropriate.




In an ideal world the site can then be advertised on one URL
http://www.somesite.com 

The site server can use device description information to determine to
the best of its abilities how to adapt the content for that browser.
Similarly the site server may be able to use information sent through by
future browsers to determine any overriding preferences the user has
expressed.  Those browsers may be able to carry out some adaptation
themselves (e.g. not displaying/downloading images) based on user
preferences.

As a fallback, if the user's browser doesn't allow them to express
preferences then the site could be authored to give the user some way of
expressing their preference once they can see the site (albeit not in
their ideal representation 1st time round).









 
 
Tim Moss
CTO
Bango
 
e: tim@bango.com
m: +44 78 8779 4032
w: http://www.bango.com
 
  
Mobile Content World 2005 
******************************************************************
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Olympia Conference Centre, London, UK
13th - 15th September 2005"
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Anderson [mailto:ray@bango.net] 
> Sent: 08 August 2005 22:47
> To: Rotan Hanrahan; public-bpwg@w3.org
> Cc: Tim Moss
> Subject: RE: Best Practices document - not best practices
> 
> URL is also hopeless if you are "passing" sites to friends.
> How do you know what device they will be using for access?
> 
> I think better to have preference information associated with 
> the terminal/client and have theserver able to discover it to 
> provide best experience.  Do we all agree with that as a way 
> forward / philosophy?
> 
> 
> At 15:05 08/08/2005, Rotan Hanrahan wrote:
> 
> >Finding a standard naming scheme might be a problem. Not everyone 
> >speaks english :)
> >
> >Yet it is technically possible to do so, and maybe we could even 
> >convince webmasters to follow.
> >
> >However, would it not be better if you could communicate your 
> >preference for "detailed", "summary", etc. using a different 
> mechanism? 
> >User preferences are supposed to be one of the things that CC/PP 
> >vocabularies could capture. I could then just use the 
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/ URL without any path, and my preference 
> >information would immediately tell the site how I would like 
> the home 
> >page to be represented. The CC/PP information would also 
> indicate the 
> >properties of my device, so the site could now offer me a 
> >representation of the page that fits both my specific 
> requirements and the consgtraints imposed by the device I am using.
> >
> >Of course, in practice, things like CC/PP are not sufficiently well 
> >supported to enable this to work (yet) so we could look for 
> an interim 
> >solution based on URL paths. Unlike paths, the benefit of using a 
> >method like CC/PP is that you don't have to choose arbitrary names.
> >
> >What if we decided the words in the path would be in Gaelic? 
> I'd have 
> >no problem understanding what 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/ceannlinte/ meant, 
> >but would you?
> >
> >OK, perhaps we go international and use Esperanto. Would 
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/resumo/ make sense?
> >
> >Putting things into the URL doesn't always help, even if it 
> seems like 
> >a good idea at the start.
> >
> >---Rotan.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Andrea Crevola [mailto:andrea.crevola@3juice.com]
> >Sent: 08 August 2005 14:18
> >To: public-bpwg@w3.org
> >Subject: Re: Best Practices document - not best practices
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Rotan Hanrahan wrote:
> > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/detailed/
> > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/summary/
> > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/bite-sized/
> > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/headlines/
> > >
> >
> >I think that you are right: only two thoughts:
> >
> >1) following this idea, we need - I suppose - is a sort of 
> standard for 
> >naming sub-folders (or sub-domains). One reason for that is avoiding 
> >that every webmaster defines his set of *versions*... so our 
> user may 
> >find more quickly the version tailored for him.
> >
> >2) we need a mechanism (technical or logical) that could let 
> the user 
> >be aware of the quantity and the quality of information that 
> is behind 
> >these urls. At the moment - I think, but that's my opinion - 
> the word 
> >"mobile" gives a - rude - idea of the amount of text, images 
> ecc. So, 
> >how we can mantain this suggestion using other words?
> >
> >Are these arguments have something to do with best practices 
> in mobile 
> >websites?
> >
> >Andrea
> 
> 
> Ray Anderson   T:+44 7768 454545    F:+44 20 7692 5558
> ray@bango.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 9 August 2005 13:24:56 UTC