Your first question should be...do you even need a mobile site? While the need is definitely coming, you can check your the analytics for your current website to determine when you will need to launch. If your analytics program doesn't specifically say "mobile users" look at the data for the platform people are using or the screen size. Even if the number is a small percentage of your overall web traffic, a trajectory of growth is a call to begin planning. As you start to think about this and discuss it with your team, consider the following...
Choosing your Domain. You have a choice when selecting the URL for your mobile site. You can set it up as a subdomain such as m.yourorganization.org or mobile.yourorganization.org. Or you can also set it up as a dot mobi domain. While people tend to have preferences one way or the other, there aren't clear guidelines. If you have an established website, you may feel it is better to do a subdomain or you may feel there is simplicity in having a .mobi domain which is completely separate. The choice is completely up to you.
Design Parameters. Mobile sites are not as complex as standard websites. They contain a limited amount of data and allow for ease of visual navigation. The site should follow basic parameters—such as portrait instead of landscape and respect that there is no mouse, keyboard or printer. Also, in thinking about the site consider that people are using it on the go. They don't want to leisurely surf. They are usually looking for something specific such as directions, a phone number or other basic information. The phone interface also enables things that a website doesn't, such as clicking on a phone number to make a call or clicking an address to map. Spend some time viewing sites like CNN, Food Network, Bank of America, Digg, MSN and Fandango (or the one my team just finished acousticdimensions.mobi) to get a feel for how they work. Navigation needs to be uber simple. Not only that, but it needs to be large enough to hit with your finger but small enough not to eat up too much of the screen. For that reason, many sites use the home page as the navigation, then everything goes "back" to that. Also consider that flash does not work with the iPhone platform. A simple HTML site is probably the best place to start.
Redirect Code. In researching mobile site design, this aspect was the one I found most difficult. Technically, the most appropriate way to redirect would be based on mobile device platforms. A quick Google search will give links to code on the web that you can copy and include on your site. However, you can typically get into the weeds pretty quickly if you don't write code, don't have a php site or don't have the ability to edit your websites htaccess doc. (If you have no idea what any of that means, don't worry and read on.) A simple redirect in HTML can be done via screen size using code pasted into the head of your site. The challenge is that as mobile devices get larger and larger screens the lines blur between mobile and desk top. For example, you may find that by using a screen redirect that a phone browser held in portrait mode will go to the mobile site, but when held in landscape mode has a screen resolution that won't redirect. (Note that if you have a link on the mobile site to get back to your main site, you may need to develop an alternate home page that it directs to--otherwise the phones will simply loop back to the mobile site when they read the redirect code that got them to the mobile version in the first place.)
Testing the Site. Once your site is live and in place you will need to test it on different platforms. Chances are the mobile site won't be perfect for every platform. Going back to analytics, you can tell which phones are the dominant ones for accessing your site and develop a site that is optimized for the top 3 - 5. Then it is a matter of finding a group of people with those phones to test and give feedback.
Comments are enabled below. I would love to hear if you have a mobile site yet and what the feedback has been!
