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Ask HN: Mobile First?

5 points by ehutch79 ↗ HN
So today I saw a 'Case Study on Mobile First'. When I saw it, I was incredibly excited. 'Finally someone published an article with concrete examples'. Alas, it was not to be so. Once again an article with no content, no substance, just a rally cry of 'mobile first'.

I'm having a hard time with this I feel like no one, except for Luke Wroblewski has ever actually designed a site mobile first.

So here's my question: Does anyone have concrete examples of content heavy sites that were designed mobile first and actually also look good on desktop and other devices like televisions?

5 comments

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deedubaya
You shouldn't be thinking "mobile first", or "desktop first". The answer is responsive web design. Use CSS media queries to deliver the same content styled for smaller screened devices (mobile).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_Web_Design

Twitter's bootstrap has support for this, as well as many other frameworks.

ehutch79
Well, there are people who disagree with this, and say you absolutely should be developing Mobile first, and think about the desktop later. Then there are people who would say that, mobile first and responsive design are part-and-parcel, that you can't do the former without the later.

Either way, I'm yet to see any examples of good looking, feature rich, content heavy sites that go from mobile to desktop without sacrificing.

People Bring up the Boston Globe website, but it's really really plain.

Also, no one ever brings up web apps. How do you mobile first/responsive design an app that's essentially a spreadsheet?

willvarfar
I'm tired of blogs that I have to scroll sideways to read; or if I maximize, are all whitespace to the right.

(I'm bothered enough by it to use the Firefox Aardvark extension to isolate the main paragraphs and trim off the other columns)

Just use jquery mobile for the widgets and it works great on desktop, mobiles and ipad.

SuperChihuahua
Isn't a big point that you don't really need a "content heavy" site? If you don't need the content in the mobile version - why do you need it in the desktop version?
ehutch79
Ok, taking that approach on the desktop version:

- No 'Featured Story' slider carousel.

- No story excerpts.

- No large story thumbnail/header image.

- No navigation aids, i.e. recent stories, you might like, trending, etc.

- No fat footer with sitemap on every page.

- etc etc etc

This is just on a news site. Imagine if a site features other content, which on a desktop would be/is fine, but presenting it all to a mobile user would be overload, and a slow page load experience.

Also, seriously can you point me to sites that have done this, and still don't look baren on a desktop?