The number of web-enabled mobile devices is growing every day. Worrying about how your site looked on a mobile device used to be a fringe issue, reserved for the geekiest and most niche markets, but it is now beginning to rise on everyone’s list of priorities.

Virginia DeBolt writes an article for Vitamin demystifying how to make your site mobile friendly.

“Making your site mobile friendly can be boiled down to a few concepts. Use validated, standards-based HTML or XHTML, ensure meaningful semantic markup with presentation removed to a stylesheet, and add handheld media rules as needed.”

A number of free services are available to help developers test their websites such as ready.mobi and Bango’s own MobileChecker, with the former providing vastly more detailed information on what caused your site to pass or fail the check.

Some sites simply aren’t mobile friendly yet but will contain RSS feeds, which can be consumed via readers like Google Reader Mobile. [As an aside, I’m a huge fan of Google Reader Mobile and will review it in greater details at a later date.]

If you’re a reader of a blog or website that hasn’t put much effort into becoming mobile-friendly, why not drop them a line and suggest it? Sometimes, all they need is a show of hands to get the wheels in motion for a new lush mobile-friendly site. If you’re a designer, what steps are you taking to make your website more mobile friendly? The changes needed to make a site mobile-friendly can sometimes surprisingly small, but will make a world of difference to readers who is using a device with a smaller screen to browse it.

In case you haven’t noticed the links in the top left, Taptology comes in both mobile and desktop flavours to suit everyone. Bookmark the mobile version (http://www.taptu.com/blog/m/) or sign up for the RSS feed to get your daily dose of mobile goodness.

[tags]mobile web, web design, thinkvitamin, taptu, taptology, google reader mobile, virginia debolt, bango, ready.mobi[/tags]

I came across this quote this morning and find it rings very true. We’ve all experienced some great and some very poor User Interfaces on the web, at the cash machine, on our mobile. Things just get far more complicated than they need to be. Nelson Minar highlights how the iPhone takes a step towards simplicity.

While the sleek touchscreen defines the iPhone’s design, one of the things I like about it are the simple mechanical buttons on the side. There’s a dedicated volume rocker which instantly makes the iPhone a better music player than any iPod. But even better is the silent mode switch, an old fashioned mechanical two position switch. Slide it away, feel a satisfying click, and your phone is now in silent mode. There’s even an orange dot visible for visual confirmation.

You can measure the disaster of cell phone UI by how many button presses it takes to silence the damn ringer. My first Nokia phone took 2, the Ericsson took 3, and on the RAZR it’s like 17 button presses. You don’t need silent mode often, but when you do you need it quickly and without a bunch of screen reading distraction. The physical switch for that is lovely.

What can you do today to simplify the process your users go through?

[From Nelson’s Weblog via Merlin Mann at 43Folders]