Mobile Design and Development: Practical Concepts and Techniques for Creating Mobile Sites and Web Apps (Animal Guide) [Paperback]

Brian Fling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0596155441 | ISBN-13: 978-0596155445 | Edition: 1

Mobile Design and Development by Brian Fling is a start to finish guide for designing and building mobile apps regardless of experience, device or platform. Brian took on the daunting challenge to write the mobile guide missing from bookshelves. As Brian describes it "this is a book that teaches people how to cook, not a collection of recipes." Since its release the book has been incredibly well received. It has being described as a "must have" by many experts in the mobile community. The 16 chapters, and 85,000 words within the book have helped thousands understand and dive into mobile.
The first half is a crash course in the mobile ecosystem: how to develop a strategy, address the mobile context--even how to decide which of the multiple mobile application types is best for you, and finally, how to create a user experience for it. The second half is focused on using these principles to make a mobile website or web app.
Mobile Design and Development is a comprehensive resource covering all aspects of the mobile ecosystem. The book covers a great number of topics, however each are described in practical and common sense way—making easy for anyone at any technical level to understand the inner working of the mobile medium.

• A Brief History of Mobile
• The Mobile Ecosystem
• Why Mobile?
• Designing for Context
• Developing a Mobile Strategy
• Types of Mobile Applications
• Mobile Application Medium Types
• Mobile Application Media Matrix
• Mobile Information Architecture
• Mobile Design
• The Elements of Mobile Design
• Mobile Design Tools
• Mobile Web Apps Versus Native Applications
• When to Make a Native Application
• When to Make a Mobile Web Application
• Mobile 2.0
• Mobile Web Development
• Mobile Markup
• Mobile CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
• Mobile JavaScript
• iPhone Web Apps
• iPhone Markup
• iPhone CSS
• iPhone Javascript
• Creating a Mobile Web App
• Web Apps as Native Apps
• Tools and Libraries
• Adapting to Devices
• Device Targeting
• Full Adaptation
• What Domain Do I Use?
• Making Money in Mobile
• Working with an App Store
• Mobile Advertising
• Supporting Devices
• Device Testing
• Desktop Testing
• Usability Testing
• The Future of Mobile

If you're a web designer, web developer, information architect, product manager, usability professional, content publisher, or an entrepreneur new to the mobile, Mobile Design and Development provides you with the knowledge you need to work with this rapidly developing technology.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Fling is the founder and Creative Director of pinch/zoom (pinchzoom.com)--a mobile design firm based in Seattle. Brian author of O'Reilly Media's Mobile Design and Development and has been an authority in the field of  in mobile user experience for over ten years. 

He has worked with some of the biggest companies in the world--like The New York Times, HSBC, ADP, BBC, Best Buy, PayPal, Delta and eHarmony--to design and build amazing mobile experiences.

Brian writes about mobile on his blog pinchzoom.com/fling

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596155441
• ISBN-13: 978-0596155445
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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  • #7 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Microprocessors & System Design > Computer Design

More About the Author

Brian Fling is the Founder and Creative Director of pinch/zoom (http://pinchzoom.com)--a mobile design firm based in Seattle. Brian is the author of O'Reilly Media's Mobile Design and Development and an authority in the field of in mobile user experience. He has recently worked with some of the biggest companies in the world--like The New York Times, HSBC, ADP, BBC, Best Buy, PayPal, Delta and eHarmony--to design and build amazing mobile experiences.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so practical techniques October 4, 2010

A Kid's Review

Format:Paperback

Original review written by Pasquale Granato, JUG Lugano, [...]

First of all, let's clear the field from a possible misunderstanding: this book is not about general mobile design and development but it is about web mobile development. The author states a precise, despite arguable, opinion that brutally said is: do not code native applications but prefer as much as you can web applications. This statement is largely discussed across the book and everyone can make up his own opinion about this. Mine is that currently times are not mature to consider to write just web applications both because mobile browser are not powerful enough (on average) to assure a smooth experience on all devices and because of the lack of a good way to make money from your web app.
The first three chapters of the book are a really good introduction to the history of mobile, to the mobile current status and to the reasons that should drive an approach to the mobile development. These chapters are a well written recap of the status of the art and present a lot of data useful to understand the global situation. Unfortunately the book is printed in black and white and several pie-charts and graphs are pretty much impossible to read.
The central part of the book, chapters from four to ten, is devoted to design issues and, despite the lack of an in-depth examination of some subjects, offers a pretty good survey of the topic.
The final part of the book is slightly more technical covering topics such as XHTML-MP, CSS, HTML5, device adaptation, etc. The problem here is that there is nothing really practical and all remains at an introductory level. To give you an example, a capital topic in device adaptation like Media Queries is covered in half a page with just a trivial example. Furthermore the author seems to be unaware of things like XwapProfile or UAProf (that is probably a obsolete and unreliable method but deserve at least a notation).
My biggest complain is anyway about the author's obsession for the iPhone. The Apple's jewel is referenced continuously and always with great glorification: the word iPhone recurs 99 times in the book and out of the 115 pictures in the book as many as 37 depict an iPhone. An entire chapter is devoted to iPhone web applications development even though most of the concepts presented here are common to other modern devices.
This is overall a decent introductory book, if you are completely new to the field, and it's packed with many good advices but do not expect much from the practical techniques promised by the title.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Starting Point December 5, 2009

By E. Peck

Format:Paperback

Anyone looking to moving into the mobile space as a developer or manager should take the time to read this book. Fling brings a considerable amount of experience to the table and gives an incredible survey of the situation as it exists now. Failing to take into account all the valuable information here would be foolish.

The tone and style are refreshing. Fling doesn't try to be cute or work up a side-line as a comedian. This is just straight out guidance, dealing with real world considerations that keeps things from being too dry.

There isn't much in the way of detailed implementation as this is an overview of the whole landscape. This is what should be read before a project is begun, not somewhere in the middle when code is already being written. Fling makes a great case for mobile web apps and gives some very practical guidance in their creation. It's really the only platform wide enough to fit in the book. Anything else would require an extremely narrow focus that wouldn't fit the rest of the book.

I enjoyed reading this and learned a lot in the process. One can't really ask for more.

Fling is a huge fan of the iPhone and spends a whole chapter describing web development for the iPhone. Since webkit exists in other smart phones, the information is applicable to other platforms for the most part but I would have preferred something less tied to one phone from one vendor. My bias is toward android, but there are plenty of iPhone and Android development books. I can use those once I've moved on to specifics. But this is really a very small issue in relation to the excellent information and presentation in this book.

There is one other issue I almost forgot. There are pie charts in the book, which is black and white. Some of the 'slices' are so close to one another in color that it was pretty much impossible for me to tell where they started and stopped. It doesn't hurt the book too much but needs to be fixed in future editions. Fling explains the charts, so one can infer where things are but that means the charts are not even necessary or helpful.

But if those are the biggest problems with a tech book, it's doing pretty well in my estimation.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Should be titled "Information Architecture for Mobile" July 25, 2010

By milo

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The bulk of this book (say 80%) is a discussion of information architecture retooled for the mobile world. A useful discussion, but it is NOT why I bought a book on mobile development. I expected a book that discussed in great detail, mobile development.

Skip to chapter 11, 'Mobile Web Development' to get a taste. Chapter 12, 'iPhone Web Apps' also has a few nuggets. Chapter 15, the oddly named and placed 'Supporting Devices' touches on setting up a test and dev environment.

Technical details for server configuration, local test/dev environment configuration, dev methods and techniques etc. are absent. This is NOT a technical reference or guide. It IS, a good executive 'summary'.

Also, although it makes every attempt to appear agnostic, the book is clearly iPhone-centric. This caused me to change my rating from two stars to one star.