I’m about to potentially start work on a website, but the client has a requirement that the website should also be accessible from mobiles/cell phones. He hasn’t mentioned which mobiles he wants to support in particular but I assume it would be smart phones like iphone, blackberry, android, etc.
My question is, how much work will this take? For example:
1) Will I need to make two copies of the site, one for computers and one for the mobiles? Or even build 2 copies of all the html files?
2) Are there any special considerations I need to keep in mind when using javascript/ajax? Such as any features which may not be supported on cell phones (such as jquery)?
3) Is there an easy trick for supporting the site on both computers & cell phones? Like just showing a different stylesheet for cell phones and everything else would just work?
Thanks.
many sites that use generally portable html and css will simply look fine as-is, with no modifications, on the latest generation of mobile browsers.
for highly-trafficed properties tho, you might want an optimized interface for mobile users that gives them exactly what they want with no extraneous images or added content that might increase latency. for instance, browse to http://m.gmail.com or http://m.yahoo.com and you see a completely stripped down version of those sites for mobile users.
if you happen to be using a cms there are plugins that automatically mobilize a lot of the content, e.g.:
if not using an existing CMS, the technique usually involves detecting the mobile browser and swapping in a different stylesheet (and theme potentially) for mobile content.
most of the latest and greatest smartphones support javascript, but it’s not necessarily on by default. client should expect that some advanced functionality might not be available on every mobile due to configuration, lack of support, or compatibility issues.