Designed for Blackberry/Mobile?

[SanDiego]

How many of your web designers take mobile phones and the Blackberry Browser into consideration when developing a site?

I recently had a guy call me looking for condos while he was driving around viewing my site with the blackberry!

And Since I've always wanted one, I went out and got one yesterday to see how they do and I am a bit surprised at how decent the web browsing is...

I have a feeling with each new model that comes out, it will get better and when that happens, designing sites more compatible with them JUST might be a decent idea!

Any thoughts?

[frobn]

How many of your web designers take mobile phones and the Blackberry Browser into consideration when developing a site?

I recently had a guy call me looking for condos while he was driving around viewing my site with the blackberry!

And Since I've always wanted one, I went out and got one yesterday to see how they do and I am a bit surprised at how decent the web browsing is...

I have a feeling with each new model that comes out, it will get better and when that happens, designing sites more compatible with them JUST might be a decent idea!

Any thoughts?

Don't tell your competition but when you build your web site on standards today you will have little to do tomorrow to be compatible with cell phones and PDAs as they become more prominent for web browsing. Encourage your competitors to use flash, a lot of images and very little text.

[maxxipotamus]

I use a Blackberry and absolutely love it. But I haven't encountered a buyer who's so high-tech yet. But in time, Broadway is right, they'll all be using cell phone browsers.

[MattL]

We do our best to make PDA-friendly pages on our sites. By and large, this just means properly designing table-layouts so that when the PDA browser converts columns to paragraphs everything still makes sense.

On the other hand, some MLSes (like MLSNI) offer PocketRealEstate.com to its Agents (MLSNI does so for free, others do charge). This at least solves the problem of the Agent having to look something up while out doing showings. I know of at least one deal closed strictly because of this capability.

Although the Blackberrys are very popular, PocketPCs are gaining a lot of steam (thanks to the near-desktop-IE viewing of web pages).

Agents can get a ~30% discount with HP for these gizmos through NAR.

-Matt

[maxxipotamus]

Matt, this is true particularly with super g technology coming where we may wi-fi virtually anywhere.

[frobn]

We do our best to make PDA-friendly pages on our sites. By and large, this just means properly designing table-layouts so that when the PDA browser converts columns to paragraphs everything still makes sense.

-Matt

Doesn't it make more sense to designing "tableless" layouts with css and xhtml?

[MattL]

That would be nice, especially if there were a standards-compliant browser on a PDA. But, alas, none of them are. IE isn't bad, but definitely supports more proprietary behaviors than it does adhere to the positioning standards.

Beyond that, there is the problem of space relationships on the PDA that would be practically impossible to translate (and I'm certain would wind up looking incorrect). For example, let's say you position your body/main content at 300px down and 250px right (leaving room for a big header & left-hand menu). Well, the PDA screen is only 320x240, so what should the browser do?

Unless you're going all the way to XSLT to reformat your layout for each platform, good ol' "HTML4-loose" is about the best you can do.

Finally, most real estate information being presented is the "correct" use of tables. Search results, Listing details, census information, etc., are all tabular information.

-Matt

[frobn]

That would be nice, especially if there were a standards-compliant browser on a PDA. But, alas, none of them are. IE isn't bad, but definitely supports more proprietary behaviors than it does adhere to the positioning standards.

Beyond that, there is the problem of space relationships on the PDA that would be practically impossible to translate (and I'm certain would wind up looking incorrect). For example, let's say you position your body/main content at 300px down and 250px right (leaving room for a big header & left-hand menu). Well, the PDA screen is only 320x240, so what should the browser do?

Unless you're going all the way to XSLT to reformat your layout for each platform, good ol' "HTML4-loose" is about the best you can do.

Finally, most real estate information being presented is the "correct" use of tables. Search results, Listing details, census information, etc., are all tabular information.

-Matt

I don't follow your reasoning. Whether you use tables or divisions for your data you have the same spacial considerations to contend with. Divisions are easier to work with than tables for odering content and you can use percentages to overcome the width problem you refer. Also, with Css you are able hide headers and columns for different media. The major advantage of css and xhtml standards is the 'separation of content and layout' so even lacking a 'standards-compliant browser' on a PDA your content will still display and probably display better than with "Html4-loose'. IE has several problems with CSS compliance but they have announced that are correcting these short comings and IE7 will be CSS 2 compliant.

[MattL]

1. I would really like to see a free-flowing DIV-based Listing that does not use absolute positioning, and still maximizes content on the screen. I honestly don't think it's achievable without tables.
2. Tables are not fundamentally bad. The whole anti-table thing began because tables are not meant to be used for positioning, they are meant to be used for tabular data. That being said, and as I pointed out, this is tabular data.
3. PocketIE and other PDA-based browsers reformat tables based on columns, not rows. For this reason, the usual 4-cell layout of Header->Left Nav->Body->Footer will still flow correctly on a PDA. If you use positioning to place your content at the top (for SEO), then your PDA-version is going to be terribly confusing.
4. PDA browsers cannot be upgraded, so a year-old device doesn't care whether there's a new IE that is 100% compliant. In fact, the PocketPC I just bought a month ago will never see a new browser unless they start offering PocketPC OS upgrades (which rarely happen). And that goes without saying for all of the phone-based gadgets that have "home-grown" browsers. You can't force the world to upgrade just because you have a standard.

This argument has been going on for a very, very, very long time. My friends over at the Web Standards Project (www.webstandards.org) started campaigning in 1998 for adherence to the exact standards we're talking about now -- seven years later.

I'll say the same to you that I said to them: Good luck trying to force the world to upgrade to fit your standards-compliant site.

-Matt

[frobn]

I'll say the same to you that I said to them: Good luck trying to force the world to upgrade to fit your standards-compliant site.

-Matt

Matt, I won't respond to your points as your mind is already made up. I am not trying to force anyone to do anything. I am just pointing out some gaps in reasoning. I do advocate for standards and I imagine that some people will agree with me and perhaps investigate them. I wasn't invoved in standards in 1997, but it doesn't take much understanding to know that things were different then. Today even MS is conceding. I have no crystal ball, however, I believe that standards will eventually dominate and I am planning accordingly. You obviously see things differently. Hey, its differences that make life interesting.