October 2011 Archive

A Mobile Version of a Mobile Site

posted by DL Byron on October 22, 2011

See this screenshot of Safari’s “mobile view,” via the Reader function, of our mobile site. The only further reduction of distracting content is no images and then after that ascii text.

Now that iOS 5 is out, it’s a good time to think about Mobile First for your next redesign. Besides all the compelling reasons to offer mobile users content formatted for them, browsers like Safari are doing it automagically. Just like Instapaper does.

If you give your followers and fans clean content to begin with, I think they’re more likely to stay with your formatting, ads, and sticky features. What Safari Reader removed was the banner, nav, a mobile ad, and share functions in the footer.

Safari Reader

Safari detects if you are on a web page with an article, displays a Reader button that appears in the URL bar, and an “elegant view” of the article is rendered. That’s elegant according to Safari. This happens with Safari on the desktop too, but is an even more enticing choice on a mobile device.

+Robert Jolly is working right now on our mobile site and we’re making sweeping changes towards a single, Responsive design that adapts to the the mobile device or desktop. We designed for a mobile view first and then we’ll address tablets and the desktop in that order. That gives us a clean start after 5 years of cruft on Bike Hugger and a view that we own and hopefully control across devices.

As I’ve said for the past couple of years, post once and publish everywhere.

For more thinking and examples of Mobile First, see +Luke Wroblewski’s new book available from +Jeffrey Zeldman’s A Book Apart. Also see what +Ethan Marcotte, +Aaron Gustafson, +Andy Clarke, +Kevin Tamura, and others are doing.

You can follow our progress on Bike Hugger too with your mobile device or here

We’re making changes daily.

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High iAnxiety

posted by DL Byron on October 15, 2011

This window showed up uninvited and sat on my desktop for a day now and I’m concerned about it. Why? Cause they don’t give me a time estimate, what could go wrong, will all my contacts get duped? Is it safe? WTF is it anyway? Will this kill Jeffrey Zeldman’s productivity and generate a thousand negative tweets, maybe a #fuckicloud hashtag?

I had the pleasure of meeting the man that invented Frequent Flier programs earlier this month. He’s a maverick in the Travel Industry and also has an enormous intellect. He made a career out of pushing boundaries. You likely use tech and concepts he developed when you travel.

Our meeting was limited to a Paris hotel lobby chat, but we got to software and social media and he hates both. The latter more. Why is that? Because we’re given to many choices and those choices are stressful. Facebook’s UI is so crazy with choices, I don’t know what to do, besides X the window out.

He believes very strongly in curated experiences that work for you. Why wouldn’t the OS just do this for me? Why must I choose? He said, you go the grocery store and stare at all the cereal boxes, right? Yes I do. I also read the boxes for ingredients and my Twitter feed is full of people I don’t know.

So I guess moving to iCloud is the best thing ever and the techmediameme will insist I do it. I know I need Siri right now, cause before that people hadn’t talked into phones to get stuff done, like order a pizza or call a plumber.

I will eventually address this window, after I write a few more blog posts, and worry about it a bit more. When I do hit click, it’ll be like dropping down a hill on my Cross bike. I’ll hope the “move to iCloud” won’t result in crash.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Hugger Industries Photostream.

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Apple Store Remodel becomes a Memorial

posted by DL Byron on October 06, 2011

Just back from Paris and woke up from a jet-lag nap to the news about Jobs. I wrote this on Twitter and G+

The simplest product my agency made took the most work and when it became a success, I realized how hard Jobs and the people at Apple work. #

and David Schloss’ post was the most poignant.

Today I went to the U-Village Apple Store to exchange a set of headphones. They’re closed for a remodel and the blacked-out windows became a memorial.

That memorial continues to grow since this photo. Also noticed by Todd Bishop at Geekwire.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Hugger Industries Photostream.

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Social Paris

posted by DL Byron on October 01, 2011

Traveling again and this time to Paris to speak at the ACTE conference about social. I’m taking a new PEN E-P3 camera with my to test for @bikehugger and PIX Magazine.

I’m spending lots of time on G+ now.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Hugger Industries Photostream.

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