Optimising a web page for iPod and the like

[Mike Lewis]

I am planning to create some pages designed specifically for viewing on hand-held devices like the iPod Touch.

I'm OK on the technical issues (like how to detect the device), but I'd appreciate some advice on the aesthetics. In particular, any thoughts on the best fonts and colours to use, and whether the font sizes should be absolute or relative?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

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[BillyRayPreachersSon]

I'll stick my neck on the line and say that actually, it probably doesn't matter too much about this if you're designing with mobile Safari in mind specifically, because it seems to have a very good rendering engine and most sites seem to look good (on the 3G iPhone at least).

However, I'd say it would be good practice to use EMs for your font sizes, and perhaps a fluid grid layout (see the very good article here:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fluidgrids)

Hope this helps,
Dan



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[Mike Lewis]

Dan,

Thanks for your reply.

I see what you mean about Mobile Safari handling the resizing. Some of my existing sites look reasonably good on an iPod Touch, without any special effort on my part.

But I was thinking of trying to do something similar to Amazon, for example, where there's a special mobile version of certain pages that seem specially designed to fit the hand-held device. The BBC iPlayer is another example.

Maybe I'll experiment a bit and see what I come up. Meantime, I'll have a look at the article you mentioned.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

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[tyutghf]

I have built an iphone version of a website using this as a guide

http://www.engageinteractive.co.uk/...-building-a-website-for-the-iphone/#detection

 

[Mike Lewis]

Thanks for that, Tyutghf. I'll take a look at the article later today.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro tips, advice, training, consultancy
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