Google’s new “mobilizer” application, found here, presents a clutter-free version of any URL you give it. The idea is to make sites more viewable on mobile devices, and it looks promising.
To test, I grabbed the last page I could recall that had been really impossible to usefully access from my treo. I’ve just this week ended an epic support issue with my local telco (TDS Metrocom) — the long story short: I called on Dec 29 2005 to report that the access panel outside my house had no dial tone on one of my lines, and after countless calls on my part and failed promises on theirs, finally had a working line on Jan 16, 2006. In the early part of that time (before I’d basically given up any hope of timely resolution), I found myself out on a Saturday adventure with the family, but wanting to call their tech support for an update. After about 15 minutes, I gave up trying to get their tech support phone number from their website via my phone.
Without a doubt, this sort of inaccessibility severely indicts the design quality of the target website. Regardless, it’s hardly uncommon. So, back to the subject at hand: how would my attempt have faired with google mobilizer?
| via mobilizer | native | |
|---|---|---|
| main page: | 0.47KB | 21.98KB |
| forms: | 1 | 1 |
| links: | 21 | 49 |
| images: | 12 | 20 |
Obviously this doesn’t solve all of the potential problems one encounters on a limited browser platform — for example, I’m not sure that the phone number I needed is actually on their website. Still, the improvement is marked, and at worst this would’ve let me give up and get back to watching trains with my toddler more quickly.
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