Trent Walton has written (and designed) a great (and beautiful) article on dealing with content in responsive web designs that adapt to the width of visitors’ browsers. Content Choreography is a good discussion of content organization, changing designs too much between various widths, and the workflow needed when creating responsive web sites. Definitely a must read for any designer or developer.
Thematic consistency means no matter what device you’re using, the same content should pull up when you hit a URL.
Jason Grigsby of CloudFour has posted an interesting (as always) article on the latest trends in mobile first responsive web design and the numbers show the majority of responsive designs provide very little, if any, file size savings for their mobile versions.
Bypass Lane is a service that lets you use your phone to order food and then skip the concessions line at ballparks. It’s a great looking app and well designed website too. There’s an HTML5 web app along with native apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. I originally saw it advertised at the Ballpark in Arlington. I didn’t get to try the app at the game (the service isn’t available up in the cheap seats) but it seems like a great idea to avoid long lines at a big game.
A great article talking about the many advantages of the mobile web. A couple of great notes from the article. First, on the reach of the World Wide Web compared to the app stores:
One word: distribution. There are 2 billion web users versus 50 million iOS users.
And what’s in it for developers…
With web apps, developers could code once and be reasonably confident their app will work on any object — phone, tablet, laptop, etc. — with a standards-compliant browser. The implications for developer time and resources are profound.
A QR code on a cup from Taco Bell. The explanation text on what to do with it is six times as big as the QR code itself and requires two URLs for help. This is way easier than just showing a simple URL to type in.
Great stats on the mobile websites for Facebook and Twitter outpacing their respective mobile apps.
Great overview of the different options when creating mobile web apps from Brian Fling. Spans from iPhone only to universal apps.
