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by salman89 4597 days ago
Good points here, especially on session length when related to logging users out.

I do however disagree with: "Anyways, the point of this is that in almost all uses, mobile site versions are god-awful." While the option to view the full site should always exist, there are enough experiences that designers would want different on mobile. There is a subset of power users who just want the full experience - but I think OP is generalizing here.
4 comments
matthewmacleod 4597 days ago
Anyways, the point of this is that in almost all uses, mobile site versions are god-awful.

I think you're right, unless the site commits the abonimable sin of redirecting from a specific desktop-targeted page to the homepage of the mobile site when it detects a certain user agent.

STOP DOING THAT.

It is absolutely the worst thing I have seen happen to site usability now that mobile sites are becoming more popular. And it's compounded in several cases by broken "view desktop version" links that still prevent me from actually seeing the page I requested in the first place.

Poor implementation that literally prevents users from viewing your content on popular devices is appalling UX, and it's one of the few things that will make me leave your site forever and never return.

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salman89 4597 days ago
It sounds more like "if you are going to do mobile, don't execute poorly" vs "don't have a mobile version because mobile versions are awful".
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didgeoridoo 4597 days ago
"Hi, I'm a server!"

http://xkcd.com/869/

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tehwalrus 4597 days ago
I agree - some of the time. For blog posts, the mobile site is fine (because it knows what I want to do; read the post.)

However, changing the requested content, not letting me look at the main site using one button at the top of the page, and stopping me zooming on a real page are all ways to get me to never visit your site again.

I read quite a lot of stuff direct from iOS Twitter in the WebView - I just ignore sites that mess me around.

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URSpider94 4597 days ago
One way to read this would be: create a responsive, well-designed main site that functions well on both mobile and desktop.

My bigger pet peeve is when the mobile site is so dumbed-down that I can't access the features that I need, but then the full site won't load on my phone.

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jgarcie 4597 days ago
I think this will be less of a problem as responsive mobile design takes over. When I'm looking at a mobile website, I don't mind that it appears slightly different as long as all the same content is there.
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