Re: test against Gmail

On 12/5/06, Luca Passani <luca.passani@openwave.com> wrote:
> quoting from http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp-scope/
>
> ""One Web" vision of a seamlessly integrated Internet remains the long-term
> objective of the Mobile Web Initiative. Members of the Mobile Web Best
> Practices Working Group (BPWG) are well aware of the challenges and
> complexities stemming from diversity of mobile devices. However, we do not
> aim to address all the related issues - including many legacy problems. Our
> immediate goal is to define a set of forward looking Best Practices
> guidelines that - when followed by authors and developers - are likely to
> make their content accessible with equal ease to users of desktop and mobile
> devices of certain assumed capabilities. It is expected that this will
> ensure a positive user experience in both environments - within the
> constrains of an appropriate delivery context"
>
> I don't understand why you still wonder where the perception comes from.
> This is what BPWG has wanted all the way (for the record, I find "one web"
> totally crazy).

I think that passage's intent is to say "best practices help you
create as effective an experience for mobile as for the desktop, and
that helps you achieve One Web goals." I see how it reads differently
too, that it also sounds like it's going to enumerate best practices
for achieving One Web, like, practiced for desktop content and
adaptation.

But, in fact, nothing the group has ever discussed or written (to my
knowledge?) concerns desktop content or adaptation (yet). This is why
I am confused. Have a look at the rest of the BP document, or the
mobileOK Basic tests draft.

I agree with your argument that it's difficult if not impossible to
create one page or experience that works equally well on desktop and
mobile. I think the BPWG implicitly agrees, as it has written BPs for
mobile-specific content.


> > If you believe  that developers will often look for the easy way out,
> > then I suggest that the easy way out here is to simply
> > ignore mobileOK.
>
> I could bet a few hundreds bucks that this is going to happen in fact.
> Developers working for operators may be implementing MobileOK because of
> requirements coming from above, but independent developers are not being
> given a compelling reason to apply BPs.

You have also written an excellent and similar set of best practices
(http://www.passani.it/gap/), so I presume you believe someone will
see their value and this will be a compelling reason to implement
them, even though nobody is forcing or paying anyone to do so.

You could look at the abysmally low rate of compliance with XHTML MP
and Basic and say, see, developers won't bother with standards. There
is still value in establishing and promoting these standards. I also
think that because mobileOK Basic is machine-testable, it's
accessible; implementations will give you a list of things to fix
immediately. If you fix a few, that's great. If you fix all of them,
even better. The mobile web is improved either way, and, that's the
W3C's goal here.


> I was assuming that Google had invested a large amount of resources to get
> Gmail on mobile right, which implied that applying those minimalistic BPs
> made no sense. You tell me that BP is so good that it has value also for
> professional mobile developers. Very well, then. Let me know what your
> engineers have to say, because something tells me that that's where the
> rubber will meet the asphalt (the extra effort for supporting BPs will not
> be justified by any advantage BPs can deliver at the moment).

Yes, but any service can be improved. I don't see why the BPs wouldn't
make sense for Gmail, or any mobile web service. They're all
common-sense ideas to me: send valid markup, set image size, don't
send extra whitespace, etc. If the group had decided that "best
practices" meant "use flash and AJAX and voice-activated controls",
yes, it might not be for everyone. But the BPs as they stand seem
applicable to all mobile sites.

Now, for example, Gmail is also available as a full-fledged
client-side application. It's a much richer experience for phones that
can run it. But, Gmail is always available in a basic form via the
web, making it accessible to many more phones. It's this kind of thing
that the BPs are promoting, *in addition to* whatever richer
experience is available.

In the case of the mobile search interface, I'm that engineer, and
sorry don't see why I'd oppose cleaning up google.com/m to pass the
tests. It just doesn't seem that hard, by design.

Sean

Received on Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:41:10 UTC