A new survey by British firm Hostway, indicates as many as 75 % of users (from 1500) surveyed find the mobile web, ie/ accessing the internet from a phone, a frustrating experience at best. Slow loading times, the inability to view sites formatted correctly for small mobile screens and the ability to access sites at all ranked high on the list. Obviously, companies need to start developing mobile compatible content soon but how and around what standard?

"At the moment, most websites just aren't flexible enough to be accessed on mobile phones," said Neil Barton, a director of Hostway. "There's nothing wrong with having a flash website with all the bells and whistles you can muster, but you've got to be aware that mobile users simply aren't going to be able to access it. The research illustrates that even if people do wait for sites to load, quite often it's impossible to actually get at the content itself because of the way that sites are built."

The study suggested that users aren't inherently adverse about using the net on the move. Nine in ten said they'd use mobile internet services providing they could be sure that pages would load faster and they'd avoid high charges.

I think the image below via Helge illustrates the challenges well:

.MOBI to the rescue? Possibly, the operator has published guidelines for better mobile site design and offers some consulting assistance. But for the time being, most mobile presences remain a far stretch behind their desktop counterparts. However .MOBI's push also seems to emphasize more people registering the TLD which does little to silence its opponents who have accused it of being the step child of communication and media giants with an emphasis of creating mobile content instead of actually developing mobile web technology and standards. See Mobhappy's .Mobi, How to make a bad idea even worse for more info.

Via The Register

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