Mike Rowehl: "Long term I’m a One Web person, but I’m also aware of the fact that The One Web is a long ways off."

Andrea Trasatti: "It is great to hear them talking about the idea that the web should be only one and that everyone should be able to access the exact same contents indipendently from the language, region or medium used, wether he/she has any visual deficiency or any other handicap. We all wish for that to be true some day soon."

I'd agree with both of these smart people. It seems to me that the one web vs mobile web battle is idealism vs pragmatism, and the two don't need to be mutually exclusive in the long term. There's where we want to be, and there's the reality of delivering services in the near future.

What doesn't help is that upgrade cycles in mobile are slower than in the fixed web. We've all been brought up to think that releasing a new browser can get it into the hands of a large chunk of your audience within months, thanks to our experiences with Netscape, IE et al downloading software over the web. This doesn't hold when it comes to mobile: browser software is tightly bound into the actual hardware, you're looking at average 12-18 month cycles for consumers to upgrade their handsets, and need a couple of these cycles to get a large chunk of your audience over to any new technology.

So if a genius or company of geniuses solves the "one web vs mobile web" problem tomorrow with an incredible software product (and I haven't seen a product which would qualify for this), we still have 2-3 years of dealing with the reality of what's out there today before we can all be idealists.

Comments

[Jo Rabin]

I suppose that I am a pragmatic One-Webber - if that doesn't sound too much like a barbeque. The test is, if I am on a desktop and you are on a phone (sorry, mobile device) do you get something even remotely sensible when you follow a link I send you? I think that this is something that is important to get right.

There's a somewhat more wordy description of this at [1].

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#OneWeb

[Tom Hume]

Jo

I can see how this should work (and can see its value) for purely informational resources, but what about more application-like web sites?

Imagine, for instance, a hypothetical purchase process. On the fixed web you have 5 stages, each with a nice well-defined URL:

1. Save items into basket
2. Review basket
3. Choose gift wrapping options
4. Enter payment options
5. Confirm

...whilst on mobile you have a purchase process with reduced complexity, reflecting the typical context of mobile use:

1. Save items into basket
2. Review basket
3. Confirm with default payment options

What should happen if I take the URL for step 3 on the desktop and use on a mobile device? Should all mobile resources duplicate the function of desktop services just in case they end up being used in order to fit in with the One Web vision? Or is there an acceptance that there are some things - no, let's be more pedantic, that there is *at least 1* thing in the world of online content - that makes no sense to be accessed via a mobile browser?

[Jo Rabin]

Tom,

Sure - your example about the shopping experience is a good illustration. Another one would be where a purely informational resource has different pagination according to the demands of different device types. So if I try to retrieve a page that is inappropriate to my device, my transactional status, etc. I do expect to be taken to somewhere reasonable - where reasonable needs to be interpreted according to the demands of the application in question.

As to the question "is there an acceptance ... that there is at least one ..." - sorry to keep nagging on about that reference [1], but yes, I believe that as far as Mobile Web Best Practices are concerned there is very definite acceptance that some things are more appropriate to the desktop (e.g. War and Peace in Parallel Russian and English Translation) and some that are more appropriate to a mobile usage context (e.g. location based services).

The key point here is that users should not be excluded because of assumptions about different classes of device. In my War and Peace application, I might spot you accessing it form a mobile phone, and say "I am really sorry but I don't have a presentation of this service that is likely to provide you with a 'functional user experience'". Crucially, I then go on to say - "However, if you insist then please go ahead."

This point is coming up increasingly in the context of 'Quart in a Pint Pot' browsers. It's frustrating for people using this kind of technology to be presented with sites that tell them to go away because they are using a mobile device. They will say that they have made the choice to do an activity usually associated with a desktop context using a device that is usually considered to be more appropriate the a mobile context. However, that is _their_ choice.

So the answer to your point is, I think, "no sense" is too strong. It's accepted that there are plenty of applications that would not usually make sense, however, don't take the user's choice away.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#OneWeb