Monday, June 23, 2008

Mobile platform testing

Over the years we discovered that XHTML/CSS as a platform had several advantages: smaller footprint for the website (CSS is cached), ADA compliance... and of course portability for multiple platforms.

Mobile platforms are no exception, because most of their issues are either the same or in parallel with ADA: content needs to be pushed to the top, navigation below, simplified in structure, and a reduced dependence on high-resolution images.

In the beginning, our testing consisted of using Lynx as a way of quickly checking structure and usability. While this is a good hard test, growing levels of usability in mobile platforms are rendering Lynx less and less relevant to what end users can see and do.

Fortunately vendors of these platforms have been good at virtualizing them to testing versions, typically for Windows (and in one case, down to an applet on Opera's website). Whereas desktop renderers have largely shrunk to the big four (MSIE / Gecko / Opera / WebKit), it's important to remember that mobile browsers are not as easily replaceable, and have not yet yielded to the same renderer core shakeout.

This is an informal laundry list of applications and websites I've used to test mobile platforms.

You'll notice (if you browse the Library website) that telephone numbers on this site are in fact working TEL and FAX links whose highlights/underlines are now visible (CSS suppresses the underlines in desktop browsers); clicking the area code dials the full number with "1928" at the beginning, clicking the 7 digit number dials it as a local call.


  • Nokia requires you to register in order to get product keys for their mobile emulators (e.g. S60 which scrolls the display over a rendered fullsize page)

  • OpenWave

  • Opera Mini's website emulator

  • DotMobi's website emulator

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