I find it very interesting. After reading your article and seeing your comparison, I think mobile designer or mobile industry should have standard size(pixel) on fonts and features that involves text. But we can’t control that for the competition is so tight! Atleast the mobile designer provides client’s customization.
Thanks Scott
Completely agree that this is currently the primary benefit of UA strings in the dev process. We’re finding that lately, we most often consider using UA detection in regards to Android…in particular the ‘diversity’ in implementation from one OEM to another. I should be clear here that we consider using them, but often choose not to. This type of constant tweaking can easily get out of hand and you have to be pretty sure your ‘small’ tweak won’t have crazy unintended consequences somewhere down the chain.
What i’m not so sure however is if we will ever be rid of this type of detection. The reason it’s been so persistent (despite tons of industry conversations reprimanding those who use it) is that it’s the ultimate hack. If it were only being used to deal with one or two gaps in spec that would be fine, but it’s such a diverse tool (…unless i’m mistaken, a fair number of large tech-focussed businesses would be in big trouble if the information found in UA strings suddenly disappeared).
I also bet 5 years from now someone will release some crazy product we can’t yet even conceive of, and within days someone will be using a UA string to (attempt to) monetize/target/detect/root around it. (Sounds a bit like a chapter in a Cory Doctorow novel :-)
@Luke Stevens
I totally agree that the ITU statistic is misleading. The original source was I think Mary Meeker during Morgan Stanley’s State of Mobile Internet presentation in 2010 but this number has been re-quoted so many times it’s becoming a bit meaningless. “This article”:http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/ by Om Malik does a pretty good job of outlining the data but the real stats are in the ~100 page “slide deck”:http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/Internet_Trends_041210.pdf and accompanying white papers.
I’ll be perfectly honest that there are lots of crap statistics out there lately when it comes to mobile. This is actually a big pet peeve of mine as I find the industry is being quite stingy with their information.
We all know full well that Google, Facebook and many other ‘digital-first’ companies with massive user bases are pouring money into mobile development. Some are even starting to say that the key driver for their businesses is or will be mobile from now on. What none of these businesses are doing is sharing any sort of meaningful mobile usage statistics (“Google’s Our Mobile Planet”:http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/tools/our-mobile-planet-tool/ site, while lovely is just an excuse to provide lovely charts and sell people on SEO and mobile search advertising).
So we are all left scraping around for whatever stats we can find on public sites such as Statcounter (which only release a fraction of their data as well) and the stuff we’ve all seen in our client’s analytics but can never discuss publicly. I’ve spoken to many companies who are seeing sustained, month on month growth in mobile traffic (and an average of 100 distinct devices a day). It may not yet be 50%, but it’s often a good 10-20%, and what is freaking them out is how fast it’s growing (some have seen a rise of 10% in less than 6 months). This is backed up by “articles such as these”:http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/07/statcounter-mobile-web-usage-doubling-every-year-nokia-leads-t/ about year on year growth (Statcounter once again…use with caution) and the general trend of more smartphones now shipping per year than PCs. (…sorry, no clickable hyperlink, for some reason this link keeps breaking when I use ALA comment syntax http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/canalys-more-smartphones-than-pcs-shipped-in-2011/)
What we could all really use is some good industry conversation about the realistic usage that is going on, how fast is it really growing (country by country, and within certain verticals like travel where it’s apparently now growing at close to 20% a year), what devices people are actually using (…as opposed to my other favourite misleading statistic which is the number of device shipments).
Thanks for that response. I understand where you are coming from.
Just another point:
Buy some devices. Seriously. Do it now.
We regularly speak to agencies that feel they can plan, design, and build for this new environment based on extensive desktop testing coupled with a few tests on the boss’s iPhone, and an emulator.
There are a seemingly endless multiplicity of devices on the market. Have you thought about writing an article on what you consider essential devices to test on? An intelligent list won’t be primarily based on popularity but that which demonstrates the spectrum of technology and user experience currently available.
Hi Andy, my ALA article links to a few good sources for this type of information, although admittedly none of the articles recommends specific devices (Brad’s come the closest by discussing platforms.)
What all articles recommend however, which I think is really important is to begin by looking at your analytics (or your clients’) to see what is popular in your region. Unless the site is hugely global in reach, you will get a pretty representative sample from the analytics, and these will often be in line with current top platforms and device shipment numbers. “My article from a few weeks back”:http://stephanierieger.com/strategies-for-choosing-test-devices/ provides a list of steps you can take to turn these initial insights into a list of suitable devices. The key is to understand why you’ve chosen to test on a particular device/browser/platform, rather than focus on specific devices because they are currently popular.
As I see you’re UK based, here is what i’m currently seeing in regards to UK traffic and popular devices.
iPhone/iPad often account for 50% of traffic (or higher). Many people already have one of these for personal use which makes it handy (although sometimes a bit too handy :-)
The balance is mostly Android (by a long shot) but in this case you will easily see 100s of devices. Look at Google’s platform stats to see what the top platform versions are (2-3 versions account for 90% of the install base), then look for some cheap, popular devices in each of the top platform versions. If your budget permits, make sure you buy one that is cheap (£50-70) and one that is mid-range (>£150). The rationale being that this is what most people are using, and if it works on those, it will likely work on the much more expensive ones. The Huawei Blaze (cheap) and HTC Wildfire (midrange-popular) or HTC Desire (midrange-popular) are usually good choices in the UK.
You can find some cheap used devices at CEX (check their website for devices that can be shipped from regional branches) and several other UK sources are mentioned in “this article”:http://tinnedfruit.com/2012/01/11/your-mobile-mileage-may-vary.html
And be sure to install Opera Mini and Mobile so that you can test on something other than WebKit (Opera Mini is quite widely used as well so is a great choice regardless).
Oops…meant to link to this in the last comment:
“Android platform version”:http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html – regularly updated chart showing distribution of each Android platform version.
Thanks Stephanie! Great feedback – agreed all around.
In regards to whether we’ll always be using device detection to work around support for “the next new feature”, I agree it’s unclear and impossible to predict.
I think one thing in our favor is that at least the browser developers and dev-rels that we’re in touch with are very aware that new features need to be detectable, particularly when their unqualified use is dangerous.
Many of the features I find most problematic for unqualified use today were first implemented long ago and never really evolved, such as the CSS2 properties I mentioned earlier. As a gross observation, it seems that new features these days tend to arrive with more graceful fallback plans and are often either easy to qualify through detection, or simply apply without worry of negative effect. Or at least, a new HTML or CSS feature might arrive paired with a JavaScript API, giving us several ways to tap in to play it safe.
The main challenge I see with UA use today is applying it in a way that kills itself off once it’s no longer necessary. With position: fixed, for example, we’re fortunate to be at the stage where almost every major mobile vendor (with the exception of Opera Mini/Mobile as of last check) has a functional position:fixed implementation, so we could write UA logic under the assumption that future versions will as well (fingers crossed). With other properties, it’s not always so clean, but these workarounds are becoming the exception rather than the norm, I think.
I’d cite BostonGlobe.com as an example of one site that works fairly well in most any browser, and nary a line of device detection is used, yet all sorts of future-ific features are in play (offline browsing, etc). The site could certainly be improved (fewer image requests on big screens, better Ad loading logic, better content loading, etc) with a little server assistance, but it’s encouraging that we’re able to get 90% of the way these days with future-friendly detection methods if we want to.
Anyway, thanks for the privilege of hijacking your comment stream. Once again, great post – please keep it up!
It is necessary to give special attention to navigation of mobile website
Phones don’t have mouse but only the small touch screen and the digital keyboard for management. all it does interaction with a site more difficult, rather than on PC.
With the explosion of devices and browser variability, our recent projects have all tended to reign in design/UI complexity so that the page will render on nearly any platform without requiring browser detection.
That said, we still implement specific browser/device sniffer to deliver more targeted experiences (specifically iphone/ipad).
Absolutely true Stephanie. As you said smart phones and pocket devices are next gen devices. Really important point that sites need to be designed for all kind of devices especially handheld because people are moving on to that, a large number.
I think the key point is that the web is becoming divergent.
On the one hand we are seeing super fast broadband coupled with ever increasing screen sizes which allows for an immersive multi-media experience, and on the other hand the mobile web, typified by lower bandwidth and smaller screens, but arguably greater functionality (phone / text for example).
And to make it even more complex, all the mobile browsers are doing their best to emulate full blown desktop browsers in terms of rendering capability…
So where to aim for?
Myself, whilst I don’t aim for the lowest common denominator (looking at IE6 here), I do aim for several aspects of core web page design, these being:
1. Functional commonality – use technology that has a high takeup, and allow for fallback (so that would be basic JS, server side processing, CSS3 (with CSS2 fall backs), HTML5 with suitable hacks for non HTML5 browsers)
2. Page weight – less is definitely more. Whilst a heavy page might look fantastic, even fast broadband users will have contention and latency issues.
3. HTTP lookups – the less the better.
For those clients not wanting a specific mobile site, if the above are followed (and tested), the site should be perfectly usable on the majority of mobile browsers (Blackberry’s apart ;-)).
Also, it’s worth understanding what users use their mobile devices for when browsing. It’s a different user experience on mobile than on a desktop – and people browse different things on mobiles than on desktops. So for example social media sites / news sites etc will be more heavily browsed by mobile, but other, more information intensive sites possibly not.
But at the end of the day good web design – with a consideration for the user – should always win out.
23 Reader Comments
Back to the Articlemarlomorrison
I find it very interesting. After reading your article and seeing your comparison, I think mobile designer or mobile industry should have standard size(pixel) on fonts and features that involves text. But we can’t control that for the competition is so tight! Atleast the mobile designer provides client’s customization.
— Marlo from “Kids Dentist”:http://gd4k.com
Stephanie Rieger
@Scott Jehl
Thanks Scott
Completely agree that this is currently the primary benefit of UA strings in the dev process. We’re finding that lately, we most often consider using UA detection in regards to Android…in particular the ‘diversity’ in implementation from one OEM to another. I should be clear here that we consider using them, but often choose not to. This type of constant tweaking can easily get out of hand and you have to be pretty sure your ‘small’ tweak won’t have crazy unintended consequences somewhere down the chain.
What i’m not so sure however is if we will ever be rid of this type of detection. The reason it’s been so persistent (despite tons of industry conversations reprimanding those who use it) is that it’s the ultimate hack. If it were only being used to deal with one or two gaps in spec that would be fine, but it’s such a diverse tool (…unless i’m mistaken, a fair number of large tech-focussed businesses would be in big trouble if the information found in UA strings suddenly disappeared).
I also bet 5 years from now someone will release some crazy product we can’t yet even conceive of, and within days someone will be using a UA string to (attempt to) monetize/target/detect/root around it. (Sounds a bit like a chapter in a Cory Doctorow novel :-)
Stephanie Rieger
@Luke Stevens
I totally agree that the ITU statistic is misleading. The original source was I think Mary Meeker during Morgan Stanley’s State of Mobile Internet presentation in 2010 but this number has been re-quoted so many times it’s becoming a bit meaningless. “This article”:http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/ by Om Malik does a pretty good job of outlining the data but the real stats are in the ~100 page “slide deck”:http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/Internet_Trends_041210.pdf and accompanying white papers.
I’ll be perfectly honest that there are lots of crap statistics out there lately when it comes to mobile. This is actually a big pet peeve of mine as I find the industry is being quite stingy with their information.
We all know full well that Google, Facebook and many other ‘digital-first’ companies with massive user bases are pouring money into mobile development. Some are even starting to say that the key driver for their businesses is or will be mobile from now on. What none of these businesses are doing is sharing any sort of meaningful mobile usage statistics (“Google’s Our Mobile Planet”:http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/tools/our-mobile-planet-tool/ site, while lovely is just an excuse to provide lovely charts and sell people on SEO and mobile search advertising).
So we are all left scraping around for whatever stats we can find on public sites such as Statcounter (which only release a fraction of their data as well) and the stuff we’ve all seen in our client’s analytics but can never discuss publicly. I’ve spoken to many companies who are seeing sustained, month on month growth in mobile traffic (and an average of 100 distinct devices a day). It may not yet be 50%, but it’s often a good 10-20%, and what is freaking them out is how fast it’s growing (some have seen a rise of 10% in less than 6 months). This is backed up by “articles such as these”:http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/07/statcounter-mobile-web-usage-doubling-every-year-nokia-leads-t/ about year on year growth (Statcounter once again…use with caution) and the general trend of more smartphones now shipping per year than PCs. (…sorry, no clickable hyperlink, for some reason this link keeps breaking when I use ALA comment syntax http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/canalys-more-smartphones-than-pcs-shipped-in-2011/)
What we could all really use is some good industry conversation about the realistic usage that is going on, how fast is it really growing (country by country, and within certain verticals like travel where it’s apparently now growing at close to 20% a year), what devices people are actually using (…as opposed to my other favourite misleading statistic which is the number of device shipments).
Thanks again for the comment!
Andy Walpole
Thanks for that response. I understand where you are coming from.
Just another point:
There are a seemingly endless multiplicity of devices on the market. Have you thought about writing an article on what you consider essential devices to test on? An intelligent list won’t be primarily based on popularity but that which demonstrates the spectrum of technology and user experience currently available.
Stephanie Rieger
@Andy
Hi Andy, my ALA article links to a few good sources for this type of information, although admittedly none of the articles recommends specific devices (Brad’s come the closest by discussing platforms.)
What all articles recommend however, which I think is really important is to begin by looking at your analytics (or your clients’) to see what is popular in your region. Unless the site is hugely global in reach, you will get a pretty representative sample from the analytics, and these will often be in line with current top platforms and device shipment numbers. “My article from a few weeks back”:http://stephanierieger.com/strategies-for-choosing-test-devices/ provides a list of steps you can take to turn these initial insights into a list of suitable devices. The key is to understand why you’ve chosen to test on a particular device/browser/platform, rather than focus on specific devices because they are currently popular.
As I see you’re UK based, here is what i’m currently seeing in regards to UK traffic and popular devices.
iPhone/iPad often account for 50% of traffic (or higher). Many people already have one of these for personal use which makes it handy (although sometimes a bit too handy :-)
The balance is mostly Android (by a long shot) but in this case you will easily see 100s of devices. Look at Google’s platform stats to see what the top platform versions are (2-3 versions account for 90% of the install base), then look for some cheap, popular devices in each of the top platform versions. If your budget permits, make sure you buy one that is cheap (£50-70) and one that is mid-range (>£150). The rationale being that this is what most people are using, and if it works on those, it will likely work on the much more expensive ones. The Huawei Blaze (cheap) and HTC Wildfire (midrange-popular) or HTC Desire (midrange-popular) are usually good choices in the UK.
You can find some cheap used devices at CEX (check their website for devices that can be shipped from regional branches) and several other UK sources are mentioned in “this article”:http://tinnedfruit.com/2012/01/11/your-mobile-mileage-may-vary.html
And be sure to install Opera Mini and Mobile so that you can test on something other than WebKit (Opera Mini is quite widely used as well so is a great choice regardless).
Hope this helps!
Stephanie Rieger
Oops…meant to link to this in the last comment:
“Android platform version”:http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html – regularly updated chart showing distribution of each Android platform version.
Scott Jehl
Thanks Stephanie! Great feedback – agreed all around.
In regards to whether we’ll always be using device detection to work around support for “the next new feature”, I agree it’s unclear and impossible to predict.
I think one thing in our favor is that at least the browser developers and dev-rels that we’re in touch with are very aware that new features need to be detectable, particularly when their unqualified use is dangerous.
Many of the features I find most problematic for unqualified use today were first implemented long ago and never really evolved, such as the CSS2 properties I mentioned earlier. As a gross observation, it seems that new features these days tend to arrive with more graceful fallback plans and are often either easy to qualify through detection, or simply apply without worry of negative effect. Or at least, a new HTML or CSS feature might arrive paired with a JavaScript API, giving us several ways to tap in to play it safe.
The main challenge I see with UA use today is applying it in a way that kills itself off once it’s no longer necessary. With position: fixed, for example, we’re fortunate to be at the stage where almost every major mobile vendor (with the exception of Opera Mini/Mobile as of last check) has a functional position:fixed implementation, so we could write UA logic under the assumption that future versions will as well (fingers crossed). With other properties, it’s not always so clean, but these workarounds are becoming the exception rather than the norm, I think.
I’d cite BostonGlobe.com as an example of one site that works fairly well in most any browser, and nary a line of device detection is used, yet all sorts of future-ific features are in play (offline browsing, etc). The site could certainly be improved (fewer image requests on big screens, better Ad loading logic, better content loading, etc) with a little server assistance, but it’s encouraging that we’re able to get 90% of the way these days with future-friendly detection methods if we want to.
Anyway, thanks for the privilege of hijacking your comment stream. Once again, great post – please keep it up!
CheapWebDesignSEO
It is necessary to give special attention to navigation of mobile website
Phones don’t have mouse but only the small touch screen and the digital keyboard for management. all it does interaction with a site more difficult, rather than on PC.
loclewin
Thanks for the articles. Actually they are difficult to understand. Tks again.
“bà n ghế văn phòng”:http://noithatminhha.com/noi-that-van-phong/ban-ghe-van-phong | “vách ngăn”:http://noithathanoi.net/vach-ngan-phong
sevtess1
“model railroads”:http://www.modeltrainclub.org/model-railroad-info/planning-your-layout-from-day-1.html
“n scale trains”:http://www.modeltrainclub.org/model-train-videos
Arthur Chang
With the explosion of devices and browser variability, our recent projects have all tended to reign in design/UI complexity so that the page will render on nearly any platform without requiring browser detection.
That said, we still implement specific browser/device sniffer to deliver more targeted experiences (specifically iphone/ipad).
Crishna
Absolutely true Stephanie. As you said smart phones and pocket devices are next gen devices. Really important point that sites need to be designed for all kind of devices especially handheld because people are moving on to that, a large number.
Hot Lemon
I think the key point is that the web is becoming divergent.
On the one hand we are seeing super fast broadband coupled with ever increasing screen sizes which allows for an immersive multi-media experience, and on the other hand the mobile web, typified by lower bandwidth and smaller screens, but arguably greater functionality (phone / text for example).
And to make it even more complex, all the mobile browsers are doing their best to emulate full blown desktop browsers in terms of rendering capability…
So where to aim for?
Myself, whilst I don’t aim for the lowest common denominator (looking at IE6 here), I do aim for several aspects of core web page design, these being:
1. Functional commonality – use technology that has a high takeup, and allow for fallback (so that would be basic JS, server side processing, CSS3 (with CSS2 fall backs), HTML5 with suitable hacks for non HTML5 browsers)
2. Page weight – less is definitely more. Whilst a heavy page might look fantastic, even fast broadband users will have contention and latency issues.
3. HTTP lookups – the less the better.
For those clients not wanting a specific mobile site, if the above are followed (and tested), the site should be perfectly usable on the majority of mobile browsers (Blackberry’s apart ;-)).
Also, it’s worth understanding what users use their mobile devices for when browsing. It’s a different user experience on mobile than on a desktop – and people browse different things on mobiles than on desktops. So for example social media sites / news sites etc will be more heavily browsed by mobile, but other, more information intensive sites possibly not.
But at the end of the day good web design – with a consideration for the user – should always win out.
Keep up the good work….