HTML, CSS, and JavaScript® Mobile Development For Dummies®

Introduction

When I first started writing about and designing websites, one of the major design concerns was compensating for low bandwidth and low-resolution displays. Creating websites was a balancing act between visual content — images, sound, and video — and the overall size of the files that made up my web pages. Gradually, though, computer screen resolutions got higher and higher. and high-speed Internet connections became increasingly more common. Web designers were set free to create highly visual websites, complete with digital video, Flash content, and lots of images.

Along come web-enabled cellphones and other mobile devices — with even smaller, low-resolution screens, lower bandwidth, and puny processors. Now, the design restrictions became even greater than when the Web first came into existence. Media files had to be even smaller, and very few of the features we had come used to deploying — big, nice-looking images, digital video, Flash content — were supported on these small devices.

The good news is that mobile technology is advancing very rapidly. The latest round of smartphones and handheld computers — tablets — have nice, high-resolution screens. The processors get faster every day. The latest round of iPhones, iPads, Android smartphones, and tablets support nearly every web feature supported by desktop computers. They also support Wi-Fi and 3G and 4G data networks. Designing for these devices is no longer an exercise in restraint.

Not every mobile user has ...