Thread

Hi everyone,
So I just finished a website for a client done in EE2 and they are now asking about creating a mobile web version. 

I’m trying to figure out how to go about quoting this.  I’ve done one other mobile site in straight xhtml and it ended up being a real pain (testing was the worst part).

I’d just like to get suggestions from the community on what the best process of quoting this, especially if you’ve had experience developing a mobile site using EE2.

The site is a decent size - about 10 template groups and 12 channels and 60+ pages.  I’d prefer not to use MSM.

Thanks,
Rich

I think if you’re going the separate mobile site route the biggest question will be how much of the existing template code you can refactor for your mobile version and how far you want to take it re support for different models and OS’s (iphone, android, symbian, using jQuery mobile or not etc…).
Building a dedicated mobile site can be quite the effort so don’t quote to low 😊

I’ve never yet done a “live” separate mobile site version but have been playing behind the scenes 😊

On my test site I actually found it easier and quicker to develop a “lite” template set - one template group with a few templates for content variations, stripping out anything that could slow page loading times (remembering that most mobile users suffer from 56k style download speeds). When it boiled down to it I found that using miminal images with good use of CSS for styling background gradients etc gave the best results.

I suppose it really depends on how you want it to look visually. If you want to mimic the normal site then you could end up with slow loading pages if it’s graphically heavy. On the other hand being minimalsitic gives most mobile users a faster site to browse.

Oh, and the other thing you don’t have to include all your content on a mobile site so there are possibilities to reduce dev time there!

Thanks for the input guys.  The full site has large graphics and is rather wide, so the mobile version will definitely be a stripped down version with at most one small graphic per page.

I totally agree about not including all content and I think I’m going to propose two tiers - 1 for just the essential content at a lower price and the other for all content included (over pricing this one because I don’t feel like trying to figure out how I’m going to present full content).

Also, regading jQuery mobile - I assume that only works for iPhone and Android browsers right?  I haven’t used the BB browser in a while so I don’t know how much they’ve improved.  If I do use jQuery mobile, does that mean I’ll also have to create separate templates for smartphones vs dumbphones?

I’ve not tested with JS on mobiles, but on a few sites I’ve visited on an iPhone things like lighboxes are often very flaky, like disappearing off screen or not resizing to fit the viewport - though you should be able to configure lightbox content to fit the screen.

Thanks for the input guys.  The full site has large graphics and is rather wide, so the mobile version will definitely be a stripped down version with at most one small graphic per page.

I’ve had similar requests and tried to guide clients toward ‘fast and easy’ mobile site vs. a completely redesigned but smaller version. This one is the full on site. This one is the mobile version, perfect for quick and easy reading and navigating on the iPhone.

I totally agree about not including all content and I think I’m going to propose two tiers - 1 for just the essential content at a lower price and the other for all content included (over pricing this one because I don’t feel like trying to figure out how I’m going to present full content).

That’s exactly how I did it. Squeezing a large, complex web site into a mobile screen is a recipe for all-parties-concerned frustration. Thankfully, there’s that thing called billable hours.