AFAICT you can immediately recognize that you're using a mobile version of the site on your phone.
First indication is normally URL - it contains m.something or mobile.something or /mobile ...
But then immediately you see that fonts are big, there is less content on one screen, navigation is simplified ... things like that.
Also it's become standard that you find a link to desktop version at the bottom of the page.
These switcher links in the footer (Mobile | Desktop) should always be present on all pages of the site be it desktop or mobile version, so you can switch at any time. A click on this link should be considered a user preference, and remembered, so that links to desktop version will automatically redirect you to mobile version (only if the requested content is available in mobile version I'd say), and when on mobile version you can then click Desktop link to get a desktop version if that's what you want, but this choice will then be remembered so next time you'll automatically be redirected to desktop version.
I mostly use desktop versions of sites on my Nexus One - except for sites that are too huge and take too long to render on the phone. And what I hate the most is when I'm redirected to mobile version and and there's no article there - either there's just a title and no content, or I'm actually redirected to home page. Both of these are a waste of my time and causing me to burn unnecessary data.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:05 PM, Gabriel Cardoso
<gcardoso@redhat.com> wrote:
> Something I do all the time on my tablet is switch between the 'mobile'
> site and the desktop version of the site (mostly it's from mobile to
> desktop since on most sites, their mobile version is meant for phones,
> not tablets, and it a horrible experience). This comes down to user
> preference.
>
> The main usecase for this functionality is if I am on a phone and I go
> to the site. For some reason my phone doesn't get detected as a mobile
> device. Now I am on the desktop version of the site, on a phone, and its
> a bad experience.
> Since my phone didn't get detected as being a mobile device the first
> time, I can't just dynamically display a link on the desktop site if I
> think they are a mobile, since doing the detection again isn't going to
> change anything.
> So displaying the link now is for catching this error condition.
Now it's clear to me the importance of having a link to the mobile site in the desktop version :)
> If I have a link at the top of the page (ideally near the top left),
> then I can easily see on my phone that there is a site designed for my
> device and I can hit the link to go there (discoverability)
Won't you probably realize that the site is designed for your phone by observing that it's different from the desktop version? I agree that the links at the top make it even clearer, but maybe it's not a necessary condition for the discoverability.
> If its in the footer, than I would have to scroll all the way through
> the page and have to search for the link (and I would have to do this
> blindly and assume there is such a link somewhere on the page, which may
> or may not be true for most sites).
By observing some big sites (like Facebook, I realized that they often put this link in the footer. That's probably because they assume that changing the site version is not the common action, but a exception. I agree with this approach. If the site is not redirect properly redirected and the user realizes that it is not well presented, he will look for a place to find a link to make the change.
> If anyone can come up with another way of handling these situations,
> then maybe we don't need the redirect links in the header.
My main argument is based in the users' behaviors. If the majority of our users (our main target) want to switch between site versions often, so the links need to be highlighted (maybe in the header). But if switching the site version is gonna be an exception (because the redirection didn't work very well), than the links should be in a modest place (like the footer). And even if most of people want to do it, once they have switched and won't do it anymore, the links become a visual noise in the interface -- so it's better to be in a more hidden place.
Thoughts?