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I have a website that I want to make look good from a non-mobile browser, but make very usable from a mobile device.

I'm thinking I'm going to detect if the user is likely using a mobile device, and if they are, redirect the first hit to a page that says something like: "It looks like you're viewing this page on a mobile device. Would you like to view the mobile version?" Based on the user selection, I'll set a cookie. (Would this be annoying, or helpful?)

But I'd also like to make sure that if I miss someone who is mobile browsing (if I think they're non-mobile, but it turns out they aren't), I provide some way to switch to the mobile version. Also, if I detect someone is mobile, but they'd prefer to browse the full non-mobile site, I need to allow that, too.

I'm leaning toward having a mobile and non-mobile version of every page on the site, just presenting the data differently (and with a lot less images, etc) for the non-mobile version.

Anyone who's been through this, have advice? Any links to sites that do this right?

csbrooks
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  • That's pretty much what Google is doing. If you're on a mobile device, it defaults to their mobile interface, but you can switch back if you want. You might even get away with not having to build two separate templates, but just use two different sets of CSS. If you do need to build separate templates, consider not doing a 1-1 duplication. Perhaps at that point there's a need for a mobile 'mini-site'/app-type approach. – DA. Nov 24 '09 at 17:29
  • You can see some ideas here : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6844020/way-to-do-content-adaptation-to-mobile –  Aug 07 '11 at 02:46

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I'd suggest using WURFL for the detection part. Also, lots of good reading material about such practices on Mobiforge

Fanis Hatzidakis
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