Re: FYI - "Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998"

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:14:40 -0000, Eduardo Casais <casays@yahoo.com>  
wrote:


> 2) The "one Web" cannot hide the fact that developing different variants  
> of the
> same application is unavoidable. A simple look at various W3C guidelines  
> (e.g.
> for accessibility) proves the point: such documents are largely long  
> lists of
> (justified) exhortations to provide a variety of alternative  
> representations:
> for blind users, for deaf users, for browsers supporting frames or not,  
> for
> browsers with or without plugins, for devices with or without pointing  
> devices
> or keyboards or touch input, for monochrome or colour displays, etc. In  
> practice,
> this "one Web" is implemented as disparate syntactic sugar to bind  
> together
> more or less widely different variants of the same application -- this  
> is really
> what for instance alt="...", <noscript>, <noframes>, media="...", and  
> @media
> are for.

But that's alternative representations within the same site. The guideline  
"if you really can't make a site accessible, make a different site" (a  
"text-only" or "screenreader" site) is only an option for those who don't  
understand accessibility. (There was a danger that web apps couldn't be  
made accessible, but the WAI-ARIA spec seems to be bridging that gap  
nicely)

>
> 3) Nielsen's article is based on rigorous studies of actual Web sites    
> ... The conclusions might be disquieting for enthusiasts
> of the "one Web" -- and of the specialized mobile Web -- but they are  
> empirically
> substantiated.

I didn't see the data in the article, just conclusions.

> All things considered, the equivalence "Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web  
> 1998" does not seem entirely far-fetched to me.

Nor me. But if we had continued to make IE-only sites, Netscape-only sites  
in 1998, the Web would be a vastly more impoverished environment now, in  
my opinion.

bruce

Received on Friday, 6 March 2009 09:57:02 UTC