Research > Websites and Articles

After much Google-ing and researching on the web, these are the websites and articles that I find the most interesting and useful.

WEBSITES
www.smallsurfaces.com
Website tracks articles and papers about design for mobile technology. Loads of articles dating back to May 2005, all categorised under topics.

www.w3.org/mobile
The W3C Mobile Web Initiative works with the leading industries in mobile production and content providers in the aim to make mobile web browsing easy and accessible.

www.opera.com
Opera Mobile browser. Site includes a lot of information about how they have developed the technology to adapt web content for viewing on small screen devices.

www.mobiface.com
A blog site which posts articles and links about new mobile interfaces and applications.

ARTICLES
Designing the Mobile User Experience
"Achieving simplicity and speed of access is the key to expanding people’s perceptions of the mobile Web to include information, entertainment, and commerce services. If people are to use these services while they are on the go, we must avoid cramming as many features as possible into them—just so we can claim to have the biggest and best service."

Article covers a lot about designing for the mobile web, discusses restrictions, contexts of use and goes on to say how designers can successfully make content for use on mobile devices.

Mobilize, Don't Miniaturize
"Too often, when companies decide to make a mobile version of their application, they take their desktop application or site, decide which features work for mobile, and then convert those features to a mobile language or two. Through this method we get flight times, stock prices, checking email, checking calendars, local weather, and several other useful but limited applications. These applications do not fully meet user needs. To do anything in particular, the user has to visit several applications, one after the other, remembering data from application to application."

Highlights need to have mobile specific applications and web content, not simply those adapted from desktop computers. Has a very good example of a simple mobile application, and compares this to what the user would usually have to go through with a computer.

Small Screens, Big Ideas
"The results of a new study, 'Mobile TV – Attitudes to Broadcast on Mobile', confirms the need for broadcast and entertainment brands to work harder to tailor their content to mobile phones. The most successful mobile TV will also be of the right quality to work on a mobile screen and targeted to a specific audience."

Discusses having innovative content from TV programmes especially adapted or created for mobile phones. Research showed the public are interested in mobile TV but only if the content is speceffically made for phones.