Book review: Mobile First by LukeW
[su_carousel source="media: 1336,1337,1338,1339,1340" link="image" height="300" items="2" mousewheel="no"][shortcode carousal images][/su_carousel][su_divider top="no"]Book name: Mobile FirstAuthor: Luke WroblewskiPrice range: $18.00 + shipping for paperback, $9.00 for the Ebook version, $22.50 + shipping for paperback and ebook. The publisher gives volume discounts as you purchase more books.Publisher: A book apartGenre: Web design- focusing on mobile UX[su_note note_color="#f9f9d9"]Disclosure: No financial incentive and not sponsored by the publisher. This is an independent review.[/su_note]
What's this book about?
This is a blurb from
Our industry’s long wait for the complete, strategic guide to mobile web design is finally over. Former Yahoo! design architect and co-creator of Bagcheck Luke Wroblewski knows more about mobile experience than the rest of us, and packs all he knows into this entertaining, to-the-point guidebook. Its data-driven strategies and battle tested techniques will make you a master of mobile—and improve your non-mobile design, too!
This books is about a UX designer Luke W whom currently talks around the world for coders and has been sponsored by Google and even intel for his talks about the philosophy "mobile first" design.
What does the book include (extras)?
- You can buy the book in paperback copy, or (my preferred one) E-book copy as it contains pretty much everything you need to read the books on your kindle, iphone, ipad and on your computer.
- Clickable web links to the mentioned websites or things that have been quoted in the book
- Standard e-book reader function (for iBook which I use: cloud sync, highlighting, commenting, bookmarking etc.)
- A PDF copy for those whom prefer to read on their computer.
What have I learned from this book?
Even if you are not a UX/web designer. This book will tell you a lot of golden information about the evolution of mobile web and app interface.
- That very few people used the web on mobiles (especially in the west) unless they were in Japan during the early 2007 and most whom did faced with an unpleasant experience.
- The mobile environment is very constrained, you need to design for a small screen, unreliable network and it must cater for all kinds of situations for the users.
- To reduce the amount of bandwidth used on mobile web design, best practice is to use as much HTML5 and CSS3 coding as possible: as the native browsers can render it natively, therefore saving battery life and bandwidth costs.
- In mobile websites, content takes precedence over navigation as most people want to get things done when they look at a mobile website.
How applicable is it to dentistry?
Clincially: of course not! This is a web design book. This book is more suited for people whom want to update or redesign their dental or personal website into something more than just one you can see on a desktop.
Pros
- Simple, easy to read book. For anyone whom is not heavily involved in UX design.
- Extremely concise (324 pages)
- Cheap price for a good access! Quite a good deal compared to standard E-books
Cons
- A bit too concise for the deeper understanding of UX design
- Talks more about overall concepts rather than current guidelines
- Not related to dentistry, but then again, this is a good detour from the usual stuff.
Verdict
Highly Recommended - to read if you are bored and want to know more about the phiosphy of good mobile UX designEssential - if you really want to know how to design a good mobile website, and to set your level of expectation and knowledge so that you can talk to you web designer about it.Dentists in their spare time should really read it if they want to get into any mobile design (custom coded or even with Wordpress) to make sure that your mobile website is optimized for the future!If you have any questions or comments about this book, or want to comment, feel free to contact me here, or register as a member to post your thoughts about it.