Programming the Mobile Web, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5. Architecture and Design

While this is not a book about design, understanding some architectural and usability concepts is critical to creating useful mobile services. Many common desktop web design patterns and usability concepts do not apply in a mobile environment.

Note

If you want to inspire yourself, check out Mobile Awesomeness to see some of the best mobile websites available.

Mobile Strategy

When creating mobile web applications, we need to remember that we can create browser-based apps, full-screen web apps, or native web apps. All the types have some architectural rules in common, but there are also some practices that are useful only for a particular type.

My first piece of advice is, “Be responsible.” Don’t discriminate against your users just because they don’t have the mobile browser or device that you prefer. I’ve seen plenty of websites (even from big companies) showing messages like “You can only browse this site with iOS” or providing a good experience only for WebKit-based browsers. If you browse such websites with modern non-WebKit browsers, such as IE10, Firefox, or Opera, you get an awful outdated version, that may even be not touch optimized when browsing with touch devices.

When to Get Out of the Browser

We know that with mobile web we can create that with the mobile web we can create full-screen web apps and native apps. Determining when to get out of the browser depends on your particular case.

With full-screen web apps you gain more space, as well as ...