Mobile Access of the Saudi Gazette Website - Assignment Example

A mobile commerce (m-commerce) page for the Saudi Gazette September 09, 2011 Executive summary This report is about issues related to use of mobile phones to browse the web. It highlights the rationale for developing a separate mobile commerce page for the Saudi Gazette and examines issues to address to ensure users of 3G cell phone, or a mobile device such as a PDA or a Blackberry have pleasant experienced on the website. The issues addressed include content and screen sizes, security, privacy concern, advertising space, attracting existing and new web clients to the mobile page, and the speed of content download and mobile processors. The menus and navigation buttons, content fragmentation and layout, and font sizes for the mobile web page should be designed different to that of the main website. The challenge of using the smartphones is mainly the screen sizes, screen resolutions and the amount of website contents; however, most people that use mobile phones to access the web have simple phones. Therefore, challenges of using simple mobile phones browsers are also addressed. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 1.Introduction 4 2.Accessibility of the Saudi Gazette website through a mobile device 4 3.Website content versus mobile phones screen sizes 5 a)Mobile web browsers 5 b)Screen sizes 6 c)Menus and navigation buttons 8 d)Content fragmentation and layout 8 e)Font size 9 4.Security and privacy concerns 12 5.Advertising space 13 6.Attracting existing and new web clients to the mobile page 14 7.Mobile phones processors and bandwidth 15 8.Conclusion 15 List of references 16 1. Introduction Before the emergence of smart phones, browsing the internet with mobile phone was not a pleasant activity. The mobile web browsers had limited capabilities. Organizations that wished to reach clients through mobile internet had to construct separate websites using a special language known as wireless markup language (WML). Progress was made in web browsers, and mobile websites could be coded in html and later on using cascading style sheets (CSS). Nowadays, smartphones such as iPhones and Android phones allow users to browse the internet like the desktop counterpart, albeit with little limitations. But even with these strides designing mobile websites remains a great challenge. This paper is a report to the Saudi Gazette, an information provider, highlighting the issues and rationale of designing a mobile commerce page that is readable on a 3G cell phone, or a mobile device such as a PDA or a Blackberry. The report looks at the accessibility of the current Saudi Gazette website through a mobile phone and debates about website content and mobile phone screen sizes, security, privacy concern, advertising space, attracting web clients and new clients to a mobile page, and the speed of content download and mobile phone processors. 2. Accessibility of the Saudi Gazette website through a mobile device One factor to consider before designing a separate mobile website is the accessibility of the current Saudi Gazette website (www.saudigazette.com.sa) by mobile phone users. Obviously, many people using mobile phones with advanced web browsers such as iPhones, Android phones and PDA would not have much challenge accessing the website. We could simply include a script to detect the browser in use and/or write a separate CSS to layout the website for persons using mobile web browsers. However, a number of people are likely to access the website using simple mobile web browsers. Furthermore, the website content versus mobile phone screen sizes is an aspect that is likely to affect the user experience of mobile phone users. 3. Website content versus mobile phones screen sizes Website content and mobile phones screen sizes are main concerns in designing a website for mobile phone users. The current Saudi Gazette website, for instance, contains a lot of content and large-sized images besides having font sizes, menus and navigation buttons, and content fragmentation and layout that are designed primarily for users of personal computers (PCs). These aspects are likely to be unsuitable for most mobile phone users considering that screen sizes and navigation buttons of most phones are not designed in the same way as monitors, keyboards and mice of personal computers. a) Mobile web browsers The capabilities of mobile web browsers are also widely debated. Most mobile devices that people use to browse the web do not have the capabilities for smooth browsing. For instance, the Nokia 1100 and Nokia 1101 phones, which represent the largest global market share of mobile phones, have a very basic browser (Stemkoski, 2009). Johnson (2007) has agreed that many mobile users access the web “without a capable browser.” For mobile devices with capable browsers, the challenge of displaying content on small screen sizes still remains b) Screen sizes The screen sizes and screen resolutions of mobile phones and devices increases the challenges of mobile web design. Some typical mobile phone screen sizes include 320 x 480, 176 x 220 and 240 x 320 and 128 x 160 (Chapman, 2009; Stemkoski, 2009). These dimensions are far much smaller than those of computer monitors and are likely to not display properly web pages designed for computer browsers. The concern however, is not only that these screen sizes vary across various mobile phones and devices, but that the screen resolutions also vary across devices. Figure 1 below shows a sketch of various mobile phone screen dimensions. Figure 1: A sketch of various mobile phone screen dimensions (source: Stemkoski, 2009). For advanced phone like iPhones and Android based phones, inclusion of specific simple scripts in the website code allow proper display of even PC based websites. Shannon (2010) has noted that websites with a width of 900 pixels display well on iPhone web browsers. The width of the Saudi Gazette website is more that 900 pixels, meaning that even iPhone users would have to scroll left and right in order to read text. (a) (b) Figure 2: A PC webpage (a) optimized for display on a mobile phone browser (b) (source: Stemkoski, 2009). c) Menus and navigation buttons Most mobile devices lack buttons for smooth navigation of PC based websites. For instance, back buttons are not supported in a number of standard mobile phones. Webpagefx (n.d.) has indicated that right and left navigations are also not supported in a number of mobile phones. Actually, most mobile phone users are only able to navigate a website by tabbing and clicking (Stemkoski 2009; Webpagefx, n.d.). Thus, it is often very tiresome and time consuming to surf a website that has huge amount of information, and contains many form fields and links with a simple mobile device and browser. The Saudi Gazette website is an example of such as website. The challenge of smart phones with excellent navigation support shifts to the screen size and/or challenges of on-screen key and touchscreen interaction. The menus and navigation buttons for the mobile web page should be large enough and well spaced to prevent accidental activation of adjacent menus or links (Hartmann, Rössler, Höflich, 2008; Johnson, 2007; Shannon, 2010). d) Content fragmentation and layout The need for content fragmentation and proper layout of a mobile website is clear. Mobile users often pay for every downloaded byte. Therefore, too much irrelevant content is likely to annoy a user. More often than not, a person accessing a website through a mobile device is interested in just a small proportion of the general website content (Johnson, 2007). Fragmented content allows users to quickly access relevant information (Hartmann, Rössler, Höflich, 2008).The display of general content, which characterizes the Saudi Gazette website, is therefore not appropriate for mobile phone users. Stemkoski (2009) has argued that although it is possible to provide alternate CSS to accommodate mobile phones users, the best practice is to provide a separate mobile website with only the primary content, or rather the features and information that a mobile phone user is likely to be interested in. Elsewhere, it is important to note that most mobile web browsers do not properly support tables. The use of tables on the Saudi Gazette website is therefore a major challenge that must be addressed. For optimum compatibility, the layout of a mobile website should make use of CSS as opposed to tables (Snell, 2009; Webpagefx, n.d.). e) Font size Making sure that a website displays readable font sizes across various devices that the main users of the website are likely to use is an essential aspect of web design. The Saudi Gazette website is readable when viewed through a personal computer, but may unreadable on some mobile web browser. Bournique (2008) has remarked that font sizes that display normally on a desktop browser could appear too large or too small on a mobile or WAP browser. Even more challenging is that certain font styles and tags have varying effects on various mobile devices or browsers. Figures 2a, 2b 2c and 2d below highlights the varying effects of various font tags and styles (bold, italic, underline, small, big, emphasis, and strong tags) on various mobile phones. a) Sony Ericson T610 b) Nokia Mobile Browser 4.0 c) Sony Ericson T68i Figure 2 – Effects of font tags and styles on various phone browsers (source: Anonymous, 2011) The display of the NBC Olympic website on Nokia N95 browser is another example of challenges of displaying appropriate font size on various mobile phone browsers. The NBC Olympic website is unreadable on the Nokia N95 browser. The typical screen size of the Nokia N95 is 7.5 cm (2.6 inch). The zoom functions, which is supported by some mobile browsers such as Opera Mobile and S60Webkit, does not provide appropriate solution to font size challenges. Although, a user of these two mobile browsers can zoom in text to readable sizes, the effect on images is unpleasant; the images often become degraded or broader than the mobile phone screen. As noted by Bournique (2008), a website page that displays perfectly on a particular mobile phone may be illegible on a different mobile device. It is therefore difficult to specify a font size that is readable across all mobile phones. Furthermore, the variations of screen resolution and sizes of mobile phones further increase the challenges of fonts display across mobile devices. Bournique (2008) has suggested setting the font size for a mobile website’s main content to browsers default to allow acceptable level of readability across various mobile phones browsers. 4. Security and privacy concerns Security and privacy are other important concerns in regards to a website that is accessible through a mobile phone. The concern for the Saud Gazette mobile webpage stems from the need to allow users to pay subscription fees and provide personally identifying details through the mobile webpage. It would be challenging for both the web designer and the IT administrator of the Saudi Gazette website for some reasons, including browser vulnerabilities, lack of security software, and unsafe browsing practices. Similar to desktop browsers, mobile web browsers are vulnerable to a number of security breaches. Cox (2009) has revealed that the easiest way to remotely run a foreign program on a smart phone is by exploiting browser vulnerabilities. It is even worse for simple mobile phone browsers because they are more vulnerability to security exploitation. Even advanced systems such as Android have been reported to have security weaknesses. Greenberg (2009) has reported that a hacker can remotely access an Android phone by exploiting its browser vulnerability. A number of users of advanced mobile browsers also suffer from these security problems because their phones do not have security software. According to a survey done by F-Secure in North America, about 83% of mobile phones do not have any security software installed on their phones (Snell, 2009). Some of the security problems related to mobile browsers are as a result of unsafe browsing behavior. Cox (2009) has highlighted that a number of security problems related to mobile phone browsing occur accidentally. Security vulnerabilities greatly compromise the privacy and security of the organization and users data. For instance, hackers can remotely access the mobile device, perform malicious act, and acquire confidential information such as passwords, credit card information, and browsing behavior. Furthermore, providing personally identifying data through the mobile website can also be an avenue through which malicious persons can access users’ personal data. Access to personal and financial information can lead not only to loss of privacy to website users, but also to loss of money by both the user and company. Accidental operations can also result in compromised data and damaged gadgets. 5. Advertising space For the information provider to offer advertisement on its mobile website, factors such as size and type of advertisement, and market size should be considered. The platform on which an advertisement is displayed dictates the size of an advertisement (Snell, 2009; Webpagefx, n.d.). For instance, mobile phones with small screen sizes and simple browsers are likely to have problems displaying large ad units. Image ads can also be a problem because of the size. Webpagefx (n.d.) has highlighted that a mobile page can display a maximum of only 20 kilobytes. Elsewhere, some advertisement types such as flash ads are not supported in most mobile browsers. The challenge for users with flash capable browsers shifts to battery sustenance. Flash applications are known to quickly drain battery charge (Snell, 2009; Stemkoski, 2009). 6. Attracting existing and new web clients to the mobile page A mobile website or page can be located on a sub-domain or on a separate domain. For instance, the mobile website for saudigazette website could be located on either mobile.saudigazette.com or saudigazette.mobi. However, statistics show that mobile phones users often arrive at the primary domain of a website through search or direct typing (Stemkoski, 2009). It is therefore advisable to use browser detection technique to lead users to the mobile version of a web page. The technique that is commonly used and works for most users is setting up, for instance, the sub-domain mobile.saudigazette.com to redirect to saudigazette.mobi while the browser detection on saudigazette.com redirects mobile phone users to saudigazette.mobi as well (Hartmann, Rössler, Höflich, 2008; Snell, 2009; Stemkoski, 2009). There are a number of strategies that can be used to attract new clients to the mobile page. The company can display ads aimed at publicizing the mobile pages on the main website, and on other suitable websites on the web. Other promotional strategies, including short message (SMS) ads, advertisement on print media, television, and radio can also be used. 7. Mobile phones processors and bandwidth Most mobile phones have the 802.11g WiFi capabilities (Shannon, 2010). It therefore means that downloading content using these mobile phones is as fast as using an average laptop. Even better are phones like Android and iPhone which support the 3G technology. However, many mobile phones do not have that high processor speed capabilities to allow fast download. Therefore, downloading web content using mobile content remains a challenge because of relatively slow processor speeds. It remains that content fragmentation is a necessity for mobile websites. 8. Conclusion This report has highlighted the rationale for, and issues and solutions related to designing a mobile commerce page for the Saudi Gazette – an information provider. The discussion has considered readability of the mobile page on 3G cell phones as well as mobile devices such as PDA and Blackberry. The report has addressed the issues of content and screen sizes, security and privacy concern, advertising space, attracting web clients and new clients to the mobile page, and speed of phones processors and content download. List of references Anonymous 2011. Font size and style in WML. Web. http://www.developershome.com/wap/wml/wmlFontStyle.asp. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Bournique, D 2008. Mobile Web Usability - Font Size. Web. http://blog.wapreview.com/678. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Chapman, C 2009. Mobile Web design: tips and best practices. Web. http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/mobile-web-design-tips-and-best-practices.html . [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Cox, J 2009. Mobile browsers bring new security headaches. Web. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/030409-mobile-browsers-security.html . [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Greenberg ¸A 2009. More security angst for android. Web. http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/05/google-android-security-technology-security_0205_android.html. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Hartmann, M, Rössler, P, Höflich, JR, 2008. After the mobile phone? social changes and the development of mobile communication. Berlin: Frank & Timme GmbH,. Johnson, R 2007. Should you create a mobile specific page, and how? Web. http://www.3point7designs.com/blog/2007/01/should-you-create-a-mobile-specific-page-and-how/ . [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Shannon, R 2010. Mobile. Web. http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/mobile.html. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Snell, S 2009. Mobile web design trends for 2009. Web. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/13/mobile-web-design-trends-2009 . [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Stemkoski, R 2009. How to Design Websites for Mobile Phones. http://www.stemkoski.com/how-to-design-websites-for-mobile-phones. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Webpagefx, n.d. How to Design and Build a Mobile Website. Web. http://www.webpagefx.com/design-build-mobile-web-site.html. [Accessed 8 September 2011]. Read More