RE: Web-mobile : having a @media on script ?

Olivier GENDRIN wrote:

>Yesterday, Charles McCathieNevile gave a talk in Paris [1] about the
>web mobile. During the QA session, we came to talk about
>(java)scripts, and the conclusion was that some scripts where intended
>to be used with media=screen, and where useless/counterproductive with
>media=handheld.

I can certainly imagine coming to such a conclusion; I can easier
imagine Mr. McCathieNevile helping me to arrive at such a conclusion.
However, having missed the talk in Paris, I'm wondering if such
situations can be delineated a bit.

It seems like some of the sorts of things that differ would be motivated
by interface. For example, I don't know how one clicks and drags an
object on an i-phone when the event has been used by the OS to mean
"pan." Hence scripts relating to drag might cease to function, but that
seems more of an issue of compensations within the interface than of
size of the device, per se. 

More important it seems are things that one just wouldn't do in 80 cm2
of workspace that one would do in a larger workspace. I have asked my
students to wrestle with the appropriate interface, for example, to
solve a 2000 piece jig-saw puzzle on a megapixel screen -- normally one
uses a card table -- and the puzzle rather transforms itself as a
function of the size of the display (2000 objects don't draw well in a
megapixel). Some years ago I worked on the problem of assembling slide
shows in a highly limited workspace. The effect of workspace on problem
solving is interesting indeed, though I'm not necessarily seeing that
the class of automata is somehow different as a function of real estate.

Are these differences you concurred about all due to size and the
related problems of real-estate management, or are some of these
attributable to mobility itself? For example scripts that listen for
glyphs in a gestural language like ASL when given access to
accelerometers are not likely to be useful when the input device is 2D.

While the link to Chaals' talk [1] frames the topic, I don't see that it
discusses the conclusions you came to. I'm anxious to hear more.

Regards,
David


[1] http://france.w3cafe.org/Informations-et-programme,20.html

Received on Sunday, 12 October 2008 21:13:15 UTC