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In order to realise its full potential the web has to be accessible via any browser-enabled device anywhere and at any time. Today many of the web services and content available via desktop computers are not easily accessible through mobile devices.
An increasing variety of mobile device form factors, connectivity options and browsing constraints continue to slow down the growth of the mobile web. In order to cope with highly differentiated capabilities and the limitations of mobile devices, content authors and service developers are often forced to deploy multiple versions of their offerings or to rely on widespread use of adaptation techniques.
W3C have defined a set of Mobile Web Best Practices Guidelines that - when followed by authors and developers - are likely to make their content accessible with equal ease to users of desktop and mobile devices of certain assumed capabilities.
W3C's mobileOK Basic tests are based on a limited subset of the Mobile Web Best Practices. Their outcome is machine-verifiable, hence claims of mobileOK Basic conformance are easy to check using the W3C Mobile Web Best Practice Checker. The full mobileOK tests include the mobileOK Basic tests and are based on a larger subset of the Mobile Web Best Practices. These tests are not all machine-verifiable.
Designers should follow the Mobile Web Best Practices guidelines when creating web sites to be accessed via mobile devices.
Websites should conform to the automated mobileOK basic tests, whilst aiming towards conformance to the full mobile OK tests.
For practical tips, visit the top tips section of this guidance.
For other information resources, go to the resources section of this guidance.
Page last reviewed: 11 August 2008