Building Responsive Data Visualization for the Web

Chapter 01 The Mobile Web

Before discussing responsive data design, it is important to set the stage with a brief overview of how we got here. The evolution of the mobile web does not exist in a vacuum; it is built upon the foundation of 25 years of the Internet’s growth.

In this chapter, we’ll touch upon the beginning of the consumer Internet, and how it became commercialized. We will then move on to the shift from desktop computers to mobile devices as the primary way to access the web.

Finally, you will gain an understanding for what the mobile web’s landscape looks like today by exploring how the screens currently used came to be, and what will become their logical successors.

Plus, you will end up with great conversation starters for the world’s nerdiest cocktail party.

How We Got Here

Think about the device you have in your pocket or in your hand right now. You have an absolutely godlike amount of computing power inside a device the size, shape, and fragility of a toaster pastry. Not only can it do miraculous things like calculate your age from a picture of your belly button, but it can also talk to all of the other devices on the planet and shame you for missing your morning run.

Back in the 1950s, though, computers were massive room-filling calculators that couldn’t say anything to one another. Computer science labs across the United States, Great Britain, and France were working on that “couldn’t say anything to one another” part, though. Throughout that decade, and ...