{"id":378,"date":"2012-02-28T22:06:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T04:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/?p=378"},"modified":"2012-05-09T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T03:42:09","slug":"faking-mobile-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/faking-mobile-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Faking Mobile Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a number of WordPress plugins out there which purport to\u00a0automagically\u00a0create a touch-optimized version of your site.<\/p>\r\n

“Make your blog look beautiful on tablet web browsers in under 3 minutes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n

“Automatically adds a mobile verion of your site.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n

“Automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects when viewed from the most popular mobile web browsing devices.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n

“Shows an interface designed for a mobile device when visitors come to your site on a mobile device.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n

If you’re using or abusing one of these plugins, it’s time to stop.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

I come across these sites from time to time and it’s always a poor experience. They try to fake native app conventions and usually do a poor job of it, while simultaneously making it harder to get to the content, breaking the principal of content first\/navigate second<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Some of them (~cough~onswipe) have even made the cardinal mistake of assuming that they know how big my iPad is. So when I visit a blog from inside the Twitter app or an RSS app, which gives me a much smaller viewport, I run into trouble fast.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Website<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

There’s actually a link at the bottom of the page to switch to the normal site, but I can’t see it or get to it. It assumes I’m using the full-height Safari browser – in which case the link would fit – so scrolling is disabled. Nice. Oh, and what’s up with the black bar on the right?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Website<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Articles in full-screen-sized modal windows? Oh yeah. I’m having a real tablet experience now. Sure wish it would let me scroll to the bottom of this article. Let’s try Safari instead.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Website<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Because it wouldn’t look like a mobile app if there wasn’t a nav bar with a button in it. But ahh, there’s the link at the bottom I was looking for.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Website<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Finally.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a number of WordPress plugins out there which purport to\u00a0automagically\u00a0create a touch-optimized version of your site. “Make your blog look beautiful on tablet web browsers in under 3 minutes.” “Automatically adds a mobile verion of your site.” “Automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects when viewed from the most…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbateman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}