W3C Helps Authors Go Mobile

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Open Source Checker Promotes Mobile-Friendly Content

Testimonials

 

http://www.w3.org/ -- 8 December 2008 -- Today, W3C has made it easier to create content designed to improve people's mobile experience using a broad range of devices. W3C invites the community to try the W3C mobileOK checker, which is based on the newly published standard, the mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 Recommendation.

 

W3C mobileOK logo

 

"The new checker builds on the suite of quality assurance tools offered by W3C to help authors and authoring tool developers create clean content," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "Clean content offers a number of benefits to authors and users alike. The mobileOK checker does a nice job helping you improve your content one step at a time. Your mobile audience will thank you each time you improve your score."

As shown in the implementation report, there are already several mobileOK sites, including the Google search engine and the mobile version of the Wikipedia Web site. In addition to other mobileOK content portals, newspapers and phone books, a few tools are already known to generate mobileOK content, such as Wordpress' mobile plugin. W3C anticipates that this tool will make it easier for authoring tool developers in particular to make significant strides towards reaching the global mobile community.

mobileOK Makes Checking Easy

The mobileOK Basic tests are based on the part of the Mobile Web Best Practices that can be verified automatically with software. The checker makes use of the popular W3C validator to help improve content quality. In addition to the mobile-friendliness score, the checker offers tips for meeting the needs of people on the go.

Open Source Checker Will Continue to Grow

The mobileOK checker has been developed as an open source project, driven by the Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) Working Group which includes leaders from the mobile industry and Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) sponsors. W3C welcomes suggestions for new features and improvements on the checker mailing list, where the list of contributors continues to grow. Support from the MobiWeb2.0 project, part of the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), will enable W3C to continue to actively develop the checker through at least the end of 2009.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://www.w3.org

Contacts

Contact Americas, Australia --
Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Fumihiro Kato <fumi@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

Testimonials for mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 Recommendation

English: Deutsche Telekom AG | dotMobi | Fundación CTIC | MobileAware

Deutsche Telekom AG

Deutsche Telekom AG welcomes the completion of mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. This milestone specification enables content producers everywhere to quickly run a series of tests against their content to see if the Best Practices are being followed. Due to the clear cut nature of the test results definitive statements can be made about how suitable the content is for display not only on desktops but also on mobile devices. Deutsche Telekom AG will continue to support this specification for the creation of mobileOK content.

— Kai-Dietrich Scheppe, Manager Portal Services, Deutsche Telekom AG, Products & Innovation

dotMobi

dotMobi welcomes the elevation of W3C mobileOK Basic Tests to W3C Recommendation. The mobileOK tests are a cornerstone of the testing provided by dotMobi's popular mobiReady.com report which helps developers to ensure that mobile Web sites work across the widest possible variety of handsets and operators.

— Trey Harvin, CEO, dotMobi

Fundación CTIC

CTIC (Information & Communication Technology Centre) is pleased with the unveiling of W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 as W3C Recommendation. This recomendation approaches us to the One Web goal and will become a starting point for mobile web validation tools. Based on this recommendation, CTIC expands its accessibility validator tool (TAW) with these tests to assure that analyzed web resources are supported by a broad family of devices, and to guarantee that t he site is usable not only by any user but also by any device. Besides this tool, Fundacion CTIC has a content adaptation tool (Merkur) and all the sites where this tool is being used will be tested using this recommendation, to assure the quality of the adaptation. CTIC is also participating in the open-source MyMobileWeb platform that allows developers to create context-aware mobile web applications.

— Carlos de la Fuente, Chief Technology Officer, Fundación CTIC

MobileAware

MobileAware strongly supports the W3C's latest Recommendation, the mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0. These tests, and the accompanying checker, will make it easier for Web developers to address the challenges presented by the growing mobile context. MobileAware will continue to offer solutions that make it easier to create mobile Web sites that meet the criteria established by this Recommendation.

— Todd Shingler, CEO, MobileAware

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