The document discusses the state of web development and the challenges it faces. Key challenges include fragmentation due to varied device capabilities and screen sizes, unknown future devices, broken search engine optimization for mobile sites, and limited options for monetization on small screens. The predominant solutions discussed are responsive and adaptive web development. The future may bring more fragmentation from new devices as well as a need for accessibility and semantic linking of content.
2. Introduction
• Web development is going through rapid evolution since the
onset of mobile (or rather iPhone)
• Challenges in presenting content to users with varied network
speed, screen size and capabilities limitation has increased
manifold
• There exists no silver bullet today to make web development
easier, and its harder to monetize the content
22/10/2012 2
3. Introduction
• This presentation will cover
– Challenges of web development in content design,
discovery, monetization
– Prevailing methodologies
– Predictions for the future
22/10/2012 3
4. Challenges : Design
• Fragmentation of form factors
– websites are accessed from devices with screen sizes as
low as 240 pixels to ~2000 pixels width with varying pixel
densities
• Fragmentation of capabilities
– fragmentation is not limited to screen size, it extends to
support of browser cookies, performance of JavaScript,
inclusion of HTML5 features [1]
22/10/2012 4
5. Challenges : Design
• Unknown future
– Perhaps the biggest challenge is to develop website for
tomorrows unknown devices whose screen size, device
capabilities, form is unknown. It could be a wrist watch, a
sunglass, electronic kitchen appliance
22/10/2012 5
6. Challenges : Content Discovery
• Search Engines are broken
– Most web site have dedicated optimized version of web site for
mobile phones, which generally involves changes in URL
breaking SEO
– Should Search engines show search results based on how
iphone/android user sees a website or how a PC user sees a
website?
– How does Search engine handle AJAX calls, where URLs are
composed on users interaction with the site
• App stores for web apps is not a solution
– Packaging web sites into web application is yet another
fragmentation of paid v/s unpaid subscriber to the site
22/10/2012 6
7. Challenges : Monetization
• Limited screen real estate for Ads
– Unlike websites, inclusion of Ads in smaller screen devices
impacts the usage of web site more adversely.
– Generally small screen devices have one Ad at the bottom
of the screen, where as website on PC have ~5-10 Ads
22/10/2012 7
8. Challenges : Quality Assurance
• Inventory of devices
– Testing website for usability against so many form factors
involves buying or renting these devices.
– Online tools to test real devices solve this problem to some
extent, but experience of testing is bad due to low
response time and the service is expensive.
22/10/2012 8
9. Solutions
• Responsive web development [2]
• Adaptive web development
• Combination of Responsive and Adaptive
22/10/2012 9
10. Methodology: Responsive
• Emphasis on careful design of the website and maintaining a
single copy of website for all form factors.
• Web site should alter its form and behavior based on the
device capabilities through feature detection
• Limitations
– Any change in the web site design during maintenance
needs to be tested against all form factors
– Careful design cannot cover the unknown form of the
future device
22/10/2012 10
11. Methodology: Adaptive
• Emphasis on having dedicated sites for major/popular devices
• Generally a different domain of the website starting with m.
or ending with .mobi is maintained and all mobile hits are
redirected to them
• Limitations :
– Time to add/update feature is poor, requires update on all
dedicated sites
22/10/2012 11
12. Future of Web development
• More challenges
– Expect new unknown devices to be internet enabled
• Standardization
– HTML5 to be more stable
• Monopoly of OS : Unknown
– Operating Systems hold control over device features exposed to
web browser. Access to camera, accelerometer and others are
almost unavailable till now (possible explanation: opening of
these features will affect app store sales)
22/10/2012 12
13. Future of Web development
• More and more websites will be semantically linked
• Web developers will be forced to design sites for visually
impaired as future users of websites may not necessarily be
human
22/10/2012 13