Top 5 Iphone styled websites

Michael Dain, Friday, May 16, 2008 @ 10:43 am

In the oxymoron that was mobile web design for many years we struggled to try our HTML pages out on different mobile devices only to have to resort to stripping out anything resembling good design or usabilty. On my trusty RAZR phone, I was content with using java apps to display things in a meaningful way, but having to learn the arcane hotkeys for each app became a chore, and they went little used. With the iphone, the promise was that regular sites look like their BS (big screen) brethren, where users can not have to learn new interaction conventions for their favorite sites outside of zooming and moving around to fit the screen. However, there is a second wave of web apps that optimize their site for the iphone. Using conventional xhtml, css, and some javascript, with a few unordered lists you can distill most complex sites into something new, and in many cases are easier, faster, and better user experiences than the 'real' sites! I hope this gives notice to web designers to pare down things that users rarely need and keep things simple. You may have your favorites, please add them to the comments, and non-iphoners can usen this emulator to try out the alternate sites:

5. iPhlickr - http://www.chandlerkent.com/iphlickr/
What sets this apart is a seeming blur between the iphone features and the browsing world, when you select a photo, you can then share it, send it, or view it within the flickr world, unfortunately when iphone apps become available next month, flickr will probably become an 'app', but until then, this is a very ingenious and useful approximation.

4. Wikipedia

Iphones aren't fast in downloading data (yet) so when I want some info, I don't want a huge load time with lots of info that isn't getting me to my goal, this interface is very fast, and also does a great job in reformatting wikipedia content to take advantage of show/hide heading behaviors, which is a new iphone 'standard', and one that helps parse long documents quickly.

3. Amazon

A old-time favorite (was iphonized pretty much right away), but Amazon should be applauded by honing down their value propositions to fit on this screen, that is product, price, ratings. Thats it, and thats what In need when I'm thinking about picking up that camera in Circuit City, i want to swoop in and Amazon it for comparison and this does the job.

2. Reqall - www.reqall.com

I mentioned how much I liked this the other day, a technologically amazing mashup of voice/text note taking, plus some nice keyword recognition make a pretty darn useful to-do list! Add on the iphone interface, with good integration of thick finger style tabs, gets a reasonable amount of navigation in a small place to seal the deal. Bummer is that it makes you login every time, but I am lobbying for that to be fixed

1. Google reader - www.google.com/reader/i

I could say the google iphone interface, but the reason for this post is a huge shout out to Google for their revamping of the RSS interface for the iphone. I am super picky about RSS readers, my copy of NewsFire broke the other day in an update and I was in a panic to find a replacement, to no avail (I fixed it by installing a previous version). The thing I dislike most about other RSS readers is using the metaphor of email. I think we all get too much email, and RSS is not email, its more like a very personalized newspaper. The google reader nails this, and has kept me busy on train trips really enjoying reading stories, with excellent ajax integration, which really shines on the iphone since refreshing the page can take 20+ seconds, keeping info inline is imperative.

I also want to give credit to the password filler-inner 1password for their iphone interface, and twistori that shows that the same design works on both BS and little if the concept and interaction are clear. If I had a wishlist for sites I wish worked on the iphone it would be cellartracker (their regular site is not too great either, but the content is invaluable on mobile) and chase - if you are really embracing mobile users, let me really bank online.

The environment will change in the next month with the introduction of iPhone apps, but the resourcefulness of these developers to take 'plain ol' HTML and make a good user experience in a very constrained environment shouldn't be lost. Give your comments and contribute your favorites I may have missed.

user experience design

Comments: 2 so far

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1. 

   My personal favorite is FaceBook. They really have done a remarkable job with it, very nice. And the new Google Reader interface is definitely a winner.

   Comment by Simon, Friday, May 16, 2008 @ 1:42 pm

2. 

   Websites with mobile or cell phone web design really has the advantage of increasing their traffic because a lot of people now uses mobile phones to access the internet. It is also an advantage if your selling online and this will result to boost up your sales.

   Comment by cell phone web design, Thursday, May 22, 2008 @ 8:25 am

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