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And what exactly does it mean that the site "works" on your phone? It has an image which loads which takes up more than the entire size of the screen (perhaps not on iPhone 4 which has a very high resolution to physical size ratio, but definitely on most Android phones)? To me, that's not working, that's distracting. "Working" means "I can click on a link which is half the size of my pinky"? OK, so sure, you can browse the site and it loads for a mobile user, but is it a good experience for the mobile user? Also, one thing you learn when you start actually studying what successful mobile sites do, is that mobile users want/need different content (or prioritize differently). Bringing certain things to the front for mobile users makes a lot of sense. So my two cents are to sniff for mobile aggressively, with a clear and easy (and preferably cookie-based where possible so your preference is remembered) way to jump back to the full site (on the current page, please! Don't make me navigate back from m.msu.edu/xyz/asdf/12345 to www.msu.edu and then find my place again). As a heavy mobile user, that's how I prefer sites to operate, and increasingly we're seeing this behavior on sites, which works for everyone. Carl Bussema III Information Technologist Michigan State University Outreach & Engagement Phone: (517) 353-8977 • Fax: (517) 432-9541 [log in to unmask] On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Alexander Hawley <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> from experience I tell you, the content provider often offers a very different view, and often a wrong one > > From your experience using sites which are not user-friendly? Or your experience delivering targeted content successfully? > > >> Don't decide what to deliver to me. > > Pfft. Imagine if the web actually worked that way. > > That is, there was not any tailoring content to location, connection speed, language, timezone, character set, delivery encoding, document format? ZOMG. > > On the contrary, those are crux of the matter. Tech related to these include RSS, microformats, RDF, XML, JSON, XHR, web services, et al. >