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PREVIOUS PAGE • SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER • CLIENT LOGIN Snake Oil in Palm-landYou've probably heard that your Web site must be modified so that it will be accessible via WAP devices. The urgency with which some are recommending this might make you think that your business will be in jeopardy if you delay. First, let's be clear on what a WAP device is. WAP stands for "wireless application protocol", the standards defined for sending and receiving data from devices such as the Palm VII and new WAP-enabled cell phones. These standards were developed by mobile phone manufacturers Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia, along with software company Unwired Planet (now Phone.com). A WAP-enabled PDA (personal digital assistant) or WAP-enabled phone will allow you to view a Web site from the comfort of a taxi. You can also send and receive e-mail while dining in a fancy restaurant with a WAP mobile phone or a 2-way pager. Other devices being developed will combine the features of these various units into one multi-purpose pocket-sized over-hyphenated organizer-communicator thingy. Maybe it'll be a "WAPhonePDA". Should you make your Web site available to people who have these devices? Will your business fail if you don't? Before you hire somebody to do the conversion, ask why you need to do it. Is your business one that might reasonably be expected to make a lot of sales to people who are eating dinner in a restaurant, sitting in the back of a taxi, or sitting in a traffic jam? If the answer to that question is No, then why would you want to spend thousands (or possibly tens of thousands) of dollars to WAPize your Web site? Because it's trendy? Business decisions should be made based on what is prudent for the business. A jeweler who sells nothing larger than a wedding ring would be foolish to buy a panel truck for deliveries simply because his neighbor, a repair shop, needs a panel truck to pick up parts for her mechanics. Stock brokers will want to migrate their applications to WAP devices promptly because those who buy and sell stocks want immediate access. Likewise on-line travel services. If my flight is cancelled, I know that I have a better chance booking a new flight on-line than standing in line at the airport. News services, too. Many of the people who read CNN's Web site today do so with portable devices. These Web sites must make their sites available to WAP users. But it seems unlikely that more than a few people will want to read my Web site on a WAP device! It just doesn't make sense for me to port my site to this new medium - or, more accurately, to these new media. It's not just one WAP device that you have to design for, after all. The display characteristics of a WAP phone differ greatly from those of a Palm VII. By comparison, the Palm VII's screen is huge. Those who have a Palm IIIc and an attached WAP modem will see sites in color, while users of mobile phones and other Palm devices will view monochrome screens. During television's "golden age", when most sets displayed pictures in black and white, stage designers selected colors that worked well in monochrome. Bright red was a lousy gray in black and white. Color televisions made stage designers' jobs harder. They were suddenly faced with the need to find colors that worked well on both color and monochrome screens. It's a hard job, but nobody has to do itUnless you're sincerely convinced that your site must soon be ported to WAP devices, just sit back and let others pay for the research that will eventually solve the conversion problems. Beyond the color issue there is the need - for WAP devices - to create a secondary site that is different in nearly every way from your standard Web site. If you think a 56K modem is slow, wait until you see data transfer rates on a WAP device. That and the low resolution of the screens suggest limiting or removing graphics from the WAP part of the site. Text must be limited, too, because screens display as little as a few dozen words. Even the largest current display won't allow more than 100 words or so, while the average page of a standard Web site can easily show 300 words. Yogi Berra is credited with saying, "When you find a fork in the road, take it." For Web site designers, that fork is the divergence between what can and should be done for standard monitor users - and what can and should be done for those who use WAP devices. A site designed for a WAP device won't look good on a standard monitor and vice versa. If you expect significant numbers of visitors to have WAP devices, then you must begin to think about redesigning the site for these devices. It will be expensive, tedious for the designer, and likely to result in inconsistencies between various versions of the site. Let's wait for itBesides personal digital assistants like those from Palm, Handspring, and Sony, expect a flood of new WAP-enabled phones in the next 12 months. Add services like WebTV and AOL's new TV-based option, Net appliances, and other interactive devices that are being developed and it becomes clear that deciding to design a Web site for these devices should not be taken lightly. The good news is that some companies are working on tools that will simplify the conversion process. IBM, for example, has a "transcoding" process that converts the language used by standard Web pages to that required by WAP devices. If your site must be WAPped, this could be a viable option. If WAP access isn't essential to your site, the wisest move would be no move at all. Ignore the hype. This road is long and the journey could be needlessly expensive. |
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William Blinn Communications - All Rights Reserved |
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