WML? Don't bother
April 19, 2007 by Andy Hagans
Last year Robert Jones gave a good primer on mobile Web design at O'Reilly. In it, he addressed one of the most basic questions you must ask yourself when designing a mobile site: Should you code in WML, XHTML MP, or both?
It would be great if we could ditch WML and move directly to XHTML MP. But life is never that simple. There are still a lot of phones out there that can only handle WML. Because of that, most of the major mobile web sites are still using WML. That, in turn, requires that new phones need to handle both WML and XHTML MP. This cycle of dependency will be broken eventually, but for now we need to consider providing mobile content in both markup languages.
A year later, the mobile Web has matured a bit in the U.S., but not much. Cameron Moll has recently posted a concise survey of practical tips for building a mobile site. In it, he addresses the same question. What building blocks should you use?
If you choose to code your site with XHTML-MP, all carriers strongly suggest providing both XHTML-MP and WML versions of your site...XHTML-MP carrier support is growing with each passing year, but it still has a long way to go.
Locker Room Rally
The Carrier Web is still a behemoth in comparison to the Mobile Web. The more of us that develop for mobile and push the limits of design, usefulness, and functionality, the sooner device manufacturers, carriers, and mobile browser developers may increase support for “mobile web standards”. Fight team fight!
So the question is, what type of mobile Web standards will we have? But a second question is, what type of mobile standards do we want? What will users want? What will 'indie webmasters' want? (Remember, the vast majority of content on the Web is generated by these indie webmasters.)
Give the people what they want
As a user, I will definitely want the following:
- access to traditional Web sites which do not offer mobile support
- access to mobile-specific Web sites that are built specifically for mobile context that optimizes my utility among the strengths and limitations of using a mobile device
As an indie webmaster, I will not want two things:
- the complex, impractical burden of browser-sniffing and serving different sites to different browsers
- the requirement that I code my site in two markup languages
These desires are not met by WML. Nor are they met by a dual XHTML MP/WML mobile Web. These desires will be met only by the full support of XHTML and CSS on mobile devices.
The carriers are stubborn, and they will not switch to standards or full XHTML and CSS just because I want them to. But sooner or later, the users will get what they want.
Consider this: although there are still many 'legacy' mobile devices in use, this percentage decreases with every generation of purchases. These generations cycle quickly: a mobile phone is not something you generally keep for 7 years. And when people replace their legacy phones, many of them will be making the switch to phones with more robust mobile browsers (like Opera). They will like these browsers. These browsers will give them access to most of the traditional Web. These browsers will even increase the utility of many mobile-specific Web sites.
In time, they will demand these browsers. Their friends will demand these browsers, too. And the remaining carriers will have to respond.
XHTML and CSS are the languages of the near future mobile Web.