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Your .ORG and the Mobile Web: Strategies to Improve Your .ORG’s Online Presence

and Grow Visibility for Your OrganizationBy Katrin Verclas, MobileActive.org

A Whitepaper produced by MobileActive.org and.ORG, The Public Interest Registry

A W H I T E P A P E R


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Your .ORG and the Mobile Web: Strategies to Improve Your .ORG’s Online Presence and Grow Visibility for Your OrganizationBy Katrin Verclas, MobileActive.orgA Whitepaper produced by MobileActive.org and .ORG, The Public Interest Registry

Have you looked at your website on your mobile phone? If not, chances are you might be infor an unpleasant surprise when you do. It's worth considering whether you should 'mobilize'your website. Data from Informa indicates that by 2010 half of the planet's population willhave access to the Internet through a mobile device.1

The following is an overview of some important points to consider as well as resources to drawon as you consider a mobile web presence for your .ORG domain name.

Background There are now 4 billion mobiles phone sub-scribers around the world, according to the

International Telecommunication Union 2, far

outpacing Internet users worldwide. GSMA,the industry group for telecom companies,reports3 that more than 80% of the Worldpopulation is currently covered by a GSM net-work.

This means that mobiles have become themost ubiquitous communication device in human history. It also means that a majority of theworld's population will access the web via their mobile phones. And this means that .ORGsaround the world need to think about what this means for their users, audience, and websites.

Simply put, the mobile web refers to Internet access from a mobile device. Today, the majorityof new phones can access the Web in some way. Hard numbers are often elusive, but there isevidence that overall mobile web access among users is growing phenomenally worldwide.

Opera Software, the company that makes one of the most popular web browsers for mobilephones, tracks the use of its product and reports rapid growth in mobile-web browsing indeveloping countries, in particular. According to Opera data4 , the number of web pagesviewed by users of its software last year over 3 billion, a 300% increase compared to 2007.According to its monthly reports, the fastest growth was in developing countries includingRussia, Indonesia, India and South Africa. While this is a proxy for actual mobile web usage,it's nonetheless an indicator that mobile web access is rapidly increasing.

Admob, a mobile advertising vendor, keeps track of mobile ad data, another proxy forinternet access via mobile. The monthly reports that Admob5 provides show similar mobileweb growth.

And yet, it is estimated by some experts at Mobiforge6 that only 0.2 % of websites aremobile-optimized - a surprisingly low number.

So Why Should You Consider a Mobile Website?In order to maximize scarce .ORG resources, you should always ask yourself "Why should Ibe sure my organization’s website is mobile-optimized?" Here are a few points to considerto help you decide:


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Courtesy of: http://www.opera.com/smw/2008/12/

• Does having a mobile presence help you advanceyour goals and/or expand your reach, forexample? Are you able to provide timelyinformation or services that your users need andon the go, and while not at a computer?

• Is location-sensitivity important to yourorganization’s work? (meaning the ability toprovide information based on where a particularsite visitor is geographically located?)

• Does your site content include any immediate calls to action, such as making aphone call or another direct action?

• Is your target audience of users more likely to access the web, including yourwebsite, from a mobile device as opposed to a computer?

The (Real) Limitations of the Mobile WebOf course, mobile phones have limitations, as anyone knows who has tried to browsethe web from a tiny screen. Mobile devices can be slow, have limited input optionsand memory to display rich data, and the screen size is tiny overall when comparedwith a computer’s by contrast, showing only about 6 lines of 25 characters in a screen.Below are some common and wide-reaching issues and pitfalls around the mobile webthat are good for you to be aware of.

Mobile devices come in many different shapes and sizes, and there is a significantvariance in data and browser capabilities across the board, which can often make ithard to test your site’s mobile rendering on all of them. There are several webstandards in place for the mobile web that can assist in providing developers withgeneral guiding information on specifications and calibrations so your website appearswell on the majority of mobile devices, however, the mobile market is also highlyfragmented, which can again make mobile development and optimization moredifficult. We describe how you can get started below.

Cost of data access in many parts of the world is another problem and can sometimeslimit mobile web use among users. However, it's been argued that cost of data accesscan be overcome if highly valuable and worthwhile content and services areconsistently offered. .ORGs the world over, then, would do well to focus onmaintaining a standard of high quality in website offerings to maximize user visits andnot fall victim to data access costs impeding visitor mobile access traffic.

High capacity networks are another limitation as they are only now becoming available


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in many parts of the world. We expect that this is rapidly changing, however, ashigher-speed 3G networks become available in India, China and increasingly manyother parts of the world. Lastly, there are still limitations in the usability of mobilebrowsers, especially for users with less technology experience.

People Use Mobiles DifferentlyWhen thinking about developing and optimizingwebsite content and usability for mobile devices, it isimportant to consider how you (and your targetusers) use your phones. It is very different than theway you would use a full computer screen, so it isessential to think about what content to include,and how to provide it to visitors to your mobile site.There are some general guidelines around this thatare helpful to consider as you evaluate your mobilepresence as a .ORG, such as:

• Make content relevant (as much as possible) to your users’ needs and/or location, as this will increase your site’s utility and value to visitors, especially when they are on the go and accessing it from a mobile device.

• Display only high-quality content that is of importance to your users • Make your site’s navigation as intuitive as possible as looking around and searching

for navigation areas can be difficult on a mobile device• Limit your input areas to only contain essential fields and make the process easy for

users.

So, How Do I Go About Mobilizing My Site? Once you have determined that developing and optimizing your website for mobileaccess holds significant benefits to your organization and value to your users, it isimportant to have a very good idea who your target user audience is and what mobiletechnology they most frequently use, as well as what content is best suitable to beprovided to your audience in your mobile site presence.

Once you have considered the above questions, what are your next options? They include:• You can do nothing and hope that the phone's mobile browser will render your site.

If you have a simple site, this may work but if you have a site that is more complexor image heavy, this will limit visitors and can also diminish value and credibility ofyour site and organization for visitors.

• You can remove formatting and simplify your site so that it loads faster as well as uses less bandwidth, all the while leaving the design the same.


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• You can mobilize your blog or RSS feed very quickly using one of the manyservices that create a mobile site from your feed. Mofuse7 is an example of suchan available service.

• If you currently use a blog, you can easily mobilize it by using a blogging platformfor your site that has mobile support built in or, if you use Wordpress8, use one ofthe plugins that create a mobile version when the blog is accessed by a mobiledevice. A popular plugin is Mobilepress9, developed by a South African group.There are many others, however, and some other creative plugins for Wordpressthat allow your visitors to send you SMS, for example10.

• You can use a different CSS file for mobile users. This CSS would defineformatting for page elements that is optimized for mobile browsers.

• Finally, you can create a distinct mobile site that is tailored to mobile browsersand provides the most usable content. A mobile site is also useful when youwant to use phone-specific features such as invoking a phone call, for example.

What resources are available for additional guidance?There are a number of resources available that help you get going. Mobiforge'sGetting Started Guide11 is indeed a great start. Mobiforge has a plethora ofinformation - one that most recently caught my attention was one on designing fordifferent screen sizes12. Check out the entire site for greatinformation.

In another excellent overview, Smash Magazineprovides an overview of Mobile Design Trends13 and offersthis advice:• Simplicity is key – stick with the essentials and keep it

very simple when it comes to your mobile site. Whitespace is important on a mobile screen - precisely becausethe screen is so small. Avoid images. They hogbandwidth and make a mobile site slow and expensive.

• Subdomains are usually better than a .mobi domain -.mobi aficionados might not like this but the emerging standard is m.domain.orgor mobile.domain.org.

• Content should be prioritized and tailored to the target user - Nonprofits need to take especially note of this -- user-focus is essential.

If you design your own site, Smash Magazine has these recommendations:• Don’t Mix Up Your Markup: For most websites, we can ignore WML and make

use of the markup language with which we’re probably much more familiar:XHTML.


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• Know Your Phones: We must cater not only to different screen sizes and resolutions,but to different shapes. From short and long rectangles to tall and skinny ones toperfect squares, the mobile world contains a rich tapestry of variation that almostmakes you want to pull your hair out!

• Target the Right Users: Traditional website users are mostlikely sitting at a desk facing a large monitor that has adecent resolution. Visitors who are browsing your mobilewebsite are unlikely to be in the same circumstances. Theymay be waiting in line, riding on the train or bus, running tothe departure gate or lost in an unfamiliar town late at nightand trying to get somewhere.

• Publish the Bare Minimum: While the concept of having onlyone website, and simply styling it differently depending onthe medium the visitor is using, is popular with manystandardistas, a separate mobile website is required to deliveran optimized experience for mobile users.

• Choose a Great Domain Name: When deciding on a domainname for a mobile website, the colleagues and companies I’ve worked with havealways used a sub-domain. Creating a sub-domain is the easiest of the options toset up (you already own the domain), it’s the cheapest option (there’s no need toregister the mobile-centric domain name, nor maintain multiple domains andbranding strategies), and it means you avoid having to spend hours tweaking the server (and potentially messing up normal traffic).

• Validate Your Markup: Mobile browsers are much less forgiving than desktopbrowsers. A browser running on a mobile device generally doesn’t have the luxuryof a 2 GHz processor and 100 MB of disk space. Therefore, you must check, validateand recheck your markup, time and time again.

• Test, Test, TEST! Testing your website with a Web browser on a desktop computercan get you only so far in terms of simulating the mobile experience. There are manyelements of mobile device usage that can’t be replicated accurately in this way.

The W3C has a Mobile Web Consortium14 that has published Best Practices forDelivering Content to Mobile Devices15 (a comprehensive list). To test your site, checkout the Ready.mobi site validator, a great tool built by the technology folks atdotMobi16.

Other testing resources include:Ready.mobi: http://ready.mobi/Emulator:http://mtld.mobi/emulator.php?emulator=nokiaN70&webaddress=mtld.mobiOpenwave Phone Simulator:http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/tools_and_sdk/phone_simulator/Opera Mini Simulator:


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http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/resources/simulators.jspiPhoney: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/resources/simulators.jsp Blackberry Simulator: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/resources/simulators.jspBrowserCam: http://www.browsercam.com/Default2.aspx

Additional resources from the Mobile Web Design17 article:• 7 Usability Guidelines for Websites on Mobile Devices: Web Credible provides

guidelines for creating a website with visitors in mind (http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/mobile-guidelines.shtml)

• Make Your Site Mobile Friendly: An article from Vitamin that gives some helpfulinformation and advice (http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/css/make-your-site-mobile-friendly)

• Mobile Web Design: A book written by Cameron Moll (http://mobilewebbook.com/)

• mobiSiteGalore: A free tool for creating mobile websites (http://www.mobisitegalore.com/index.html)

• Mobile Design Showcases : A brief overview of good design practices, with examples ofbeautiful mobile Web designs (http://sw.nokia.com/id/6b5f050f-6e8b-47d7-9cfa-c2cc0b439621/Mobile_Design_Showcases_v1_0_en.pdf)

• Google Wireless Transcoder: Enter a URL and see a stripped-down version of thewebsite. This helps you identify usability improvements that can be made(http://www.google.com/gwt/n)

• Mobile Mammoth: A blog that features many mobile websites (http://www.mobilemammoth.com/)

• Web on Your Cell: A directory of mobile websites. Not a huge number of websites listed, but still a helpful resource (http://webonyourcell.com/)

• Mobile Web Design: The Series: An older but still useful series of articles by Cameron Moll (http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000398.html)

• Mobile Web Practices 1.0: The guidelines for mobile Web design from the W3C (http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/).

• Coding for the Mobile Web: Chris Mills describes coding techniques for the development of websites for mobile devices (http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/css/coding-for-the-mobile-web)

• Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites: (http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-and-developing-mobile-web-site/)

Footnotes:1 http://shop.informatm.com/marlin/30000001001/MARKT_EFFORT/marketingid/200011317602 http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2008/29.html3 http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,61960272,00.htm4 http://www.opera.com/smw/5 http://www.admob.com/s/solutions/metrics?_cd=16 http://mobiforge.com/


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.ORG, The Public Interest Registry 1775 Wiehle Avenue • Suite 200 • Reston, VA 20190 USA • 703.889.5778 • www.pir.org

© 2009 MobileActive.org. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.


7 http://mofuse.com/8 http://wordpress.org/9 http://mobilepress.co.za/10 http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=mobile11 http://mobiforge.com/starting/story/dotmobi-mobile-web-developers-guide12 http://mobiforge.com/designing/story/effective-design-multiple-screen-sizes13 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/13/mobile-web-design-trends-2009/14 http://www.w3.org/Mobile/15 http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/16 http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN17 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/13/mobile-web-design-trends-2009/

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