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Description

Mobilism workshops are a two-day affair where at least half of the time is spent in actually testing websites on mobile devices; including a few you've never even heard of. The other half of the time is taken up by PPK and Stephen Hay talking about various aspects of mobile web design and development.

Concept

We found that a one-day workshop is too short. By the time the first afternoon ends you've just started to understand what it's all about, and you're beginning to get some ideas for future experiments. Besides, you want to talk to your fellow attendees about practical problems and phones. Therefore our workshop is a two-day affair, and we'll also have dinner together at the end of day 1 (plus maybe a few beers, if you're so inclined).

In general, Stephen focuses more on the CSS and design side of things, while PPK handles general information and JavaScript. Both of us will talk for a while about fundamental principles, issues, tips and tricks, and curious facts of the mobile web.

Still, we are not big believers in workshops where the teacher talks for eight hours straight. Therefore the idea is that you take a genuine project you have to work on for a genuine client, or, failing that, a mobile experiment you’re working on. We'll discuss these practical examples, you'll work on them during the workshop, and we'll solve practical problems together.

We will take plenty of test phones, including a few obscure ones such as the Nokia N950 (MeeGo), the HTC Smart (Brew MP), or a low-end LG Android, that we can try stuff on. If you have them you should also take a few phones, and not only iPhones or Androids. That allows you and your fellow attendees to test your websites on as many browsers and operating systems as possible.

What you will learn

The workshops will treat the following:

Overview

  • An overview of mobile browsers, platforms, vendors, and all the rest
  • Progressive enhancement in practice
  • How to deal with proxy browsers such as Opera Mini

Design

  • How to think about content and design on desktop vs. mobile
  • How to start designing for mobile first
  • How to plan adaptive layout with breakpoint graphs and content reference wireframes
  • Several techniques for creating effective responsive design
  • A few quick-and-easy mobile UX testing methods

Code

  • The two mobile viewports and their consequences
  • All about CSS3 media queries and meta viewport
  • Working with the touch events. Making sure that your scripts also work in mobile browsers that don't support these events

Testing

  • Building a device testbed
  • How to test your adaptive layout (both with and without devices)
  • Remote debug your layout (or other things) with Opera Dragonfly or Weinre

Practical stuff

There's a maximum of 25 participants for each workshop. Tickets cost about €700 or £600 ex. VAT. This includes access to the workshop, lunch on both days, and dinner on day 1. (Ticket prices may vary a little bit between cities.)

We will take a wide range of devices. Please do the same; especially if you own obscure devices. This will ensure the widest possible test environment. Please bring your own laptop to work on. Wifi will be present.

All workshops will be held in English, unless explicitly stated otherwise.