If you maintain a blog, how many of your readers access it from a mobile device?
While your blog analytic software would indicate the number of visitors with browser resolutions less than 800×600, what about future visitors?
From “smart phones” like the iPhone and BlackBerry to the rise of netbook users, are you focusing as much on your blog design as your content? The blogs of Seth Godin, Chris Kieff, and Chris Brogan fail. Does yours?
Let’s take a look…
Seth Godin offers marketing advice every day at sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog. I clicked that link on my BlackBerry and I had to scroll through the entire left sidebar to reach the blog post. Very bad design.
This is a snippet of left sidebar content a mobile reader would need to scroll through to reach a blog article.
Chris Kieff also has a left sidebar and reading his latest article at 1goodreason.com/blog is no better.
What’s the solution for bloggers insisting on left sidebar content? If you self-host a WordPress blog, you can emulate Randy Southerland who uses a mobile-friendly plugin from Alex King. Check out one of his blog posts with your device at southwrite.wordpress.com. (Note: I also use this plugin.)
The debate on left vs right sidebar content is not new, and is not unique to blogs. Other websites are no better. There are numerous thoughts on the issues, with Brandon Manbeck writing succinctly on the potential problem for online publishers:
I used to accept all of the horizontal scrolling and zooming in on text that was necessary to view websites while on the go, but that’s not the case anymore. If I end up on a website that is not optimized for mobile, I’ll just leave most of the time.
If you’ve identified your blog or website has left sidebar content (or a ton of widgets in the right sidebar), or other elements that can offset mobile friendliness, what can you do? For starters, head over to Louis Gray’s mobile advice that was written last year for you. From issues on load time to readability to solutions for different blog platforms, I’m sure you’ll click away with some ideas.
The Blogspot publishing platform, despite its lack of plugins like the WordPress community, may still offer hope for its authors. See Kneale Mann‘s blog, for instance, who has a left sidebar but his content comes up no differently than Randy’s.
And Chris Brogan, who I mentioned above? His blog doesn’t have any left sidebar content — but he does use the Disqus commenting system. Most mobile users, like me, turn off JavaScript for faster load time. Flash, too, doesn’t run on mobile phones. Between the two, Disqus is a fail on my BlackBerry; so while I can read comments, I can’t add one.
It’s no different with other blogs that use the Disqus or IntenseDebate commenting systems.
What am I missing?
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{ 15 comments }
Twitter: DannyBrown
November 11, 2009 at 11:58 AM
I noticed that a lot of top blogs don’t seem set up for mobile friendliness, which seems kind of ironic (or a bad miss) considering that mobile is such a huge factor in browsing (and that many of these bloggers promote mobile as a huge part of social media and marketing).
The Disqus problem seems particularly problematic – I tweeted the Disqus team about this issue but haven’t had a response yet. Although I use the Wapple plug-in and that allows commenting, even on blogs using Disqus.
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Ari,
Good article, and I’d agree that browsing blogs in a blackberry is hell. However, I found during 3 years of blackberry use that I rarely browsed blogs. I would read blogs from my (Google) reader, or via emails for the few I received via email. Now with the rise of Twitter I find myself reading less from the reader and more from links in Twitter feeds from my friends. So I see the need for a better blackberry experience for my readers and I’ll address this issue asap.
Thanks,
Chris
Twitter: DannyBrown
November 11, 2009 at 3:48 PM
Hi Chris,
I’d disagree on the “browsing from a BlackBerry is hell” angle, as it’s what I use to browse when mobile. I think it’s more the websites or destinations that make it “hell”, and that’s pretty much true for any smartphone and even more so with just a WAP phone. All good fun
.-= New from Danny Brown: Learning from Rich Gubby of Wapple =-.
Danny,
I respectfully disagree, the iPhone is a graphic native device as is the new Droid. These graphic first devices make browsing a pleasure. As a BB user for years I never saw the real need or difference an iPhone would make. But since I got mine in July, I’ve completely changed my view of browsing the mobile web. A simple double tap on a column of text zooms it to full screen on my iPhone and rotating it sideways gives me very large easy to read text even standing on the subway. While I’m still surfing the web on a tiny screen the browsing experience on an iPhone makes it pleasurable and doable.
I guess it’s time for me to blog about my iPhone experiences.
Thanks,
Chris
.-= New from Chris Kieff: Webmaster Radio Ad:Tech Interview =-.
If I am understanding you correctly, Chris, you disagree with Danny (and with me, as I also browse blogs and websites when mobile with a BlackBerry) that the author and/or developer is to blame more than the user.
No? Or, if you didn’t have your iPhone but still used your BlackBerry, you’d be perfectly happy scrolling through your entire sidebar to reach your own blog articles? Just wondering.
I have never checked my own blog through a mobile device before. I just checked it after reading this post. It looks horrible. I guess I’ll have to add Alex’s plugin soon if I don’t want to lose many of my mobile users.
I’m not sure how critical mobile devices are for browsing. I think most mobile user are after a specific bit of info and don’t spend that much time surfing. I could be wrong. With modern PDAs like the iPhone, surfing standard sites is much easier. I guess Webmasters have to measure the cost/benefit. Cost could be very low with this plugin, I’ll have to check it out.
.-= New from donnie@Chattanooga Web Design: SEO Tips: Improve PageRank (Google PageRank Demystified…Sorta) Part 3 =-.
It’s just my opinion but I also think same as donnie. I have a video website which gets around 3K traffic daily from different sources but mobile users are around 10 in average. So, I also think that people don’t visit information sites or those site which takes time to surf like mine. Till now, people are using PDA devices mostly for IM or sites like FB and twitter.
This is just my opinion according to my traffic.
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Good article,well I have never checked my own blog through a mobile device before. I will check it after reading this post.I also think that people don’t visit information sites or those site which takes time to surf like mine and i think people are using PDA devices mostly for sites like FB and twitter
I think moving froward with the 3g networks and phones becoming like more like mobile computers it will be more and more important to make sure your site is compatible with mobile devices. I wonder how the search engines will use mobile searches into their rankings?
Search engines aren’t mobile friendly, either. Not really. Google and the like have mobile versions, but wouldn’t it wonderful if you googled from your mobile device and only saw mobile-friendly results?
The problem for the engines is figuring out which pages are actually mobile-friendly. Getting the resolution is actually a bit of a logistical problem. Besides that, I often don’t want just mobile-friendly results. While that would be an improvement for some things, I care more about the content than whether it’s optimized for my phone.
I think the solution to your question won’t actually rest with the engines, but instead we just have to wait for more (hopefully most!) sites to support mobile versions.
This is something that needs to be thought about more and more. More visitors are starting to use mobile to view websites, but designers still aren’t thinking about this enough.
Couldn’t agree more. I think people still worry more about IE 6 users, but users accessing webpages via mobile phones it set to double in the next 5 years. If you don’t have a mobile phone compatable website then your ingoring a huge part of your users.
This is a very interesting post. More and more visitors are viewing websites through mobiles these days and the number is only going to rise during the next few years. Designers really need to be more conscious of this when developing their sites.
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