Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Mobile website for PirateBox and more - Plans

Just a quick update on the PirateBox website design and my further plans.
Concerning the idea of having a mobile website to which all mobile phones would be redirected, I think it would be viable and a good idea to have a clear, easy to navigate and fast-loading small website for mobile users (I am aware that my current web design is, well let's say not ideal for mobile browsing). My aims are to have a minimalist, but cool mobile website with all the functions of the standard PirateBox start page.
My first idea was to carry on with the default PB website, but recently I had another much cooler idea for the graphical design.

My plan is the following:

  • Have a main menu with just 4 icons in the middle (or text?) that will lead to further pages with possibly a faded PirateBox logo behind them
  • OR a PirateBox logo on the screen with a drop-down menu from the top
  • Main menu page will only hold these 4 menu points for fast loading and easy of navigation. Also the aim was to avoid the use of complicated elements like iframes just in case if some mobile phones had difficulties with them.
  • 4 mobile websites besides the mobile start page will be: "About", Chat, Browse & Upload
  • As I do not really want to copy any icons from anyone, I will try to "design" some on my own (see how it goes...). Plan B is that I download some from some free websites or databases.
  • Pages will have return buttons to the main menu.
  • I have to put a script to piratebox.lan that will identify mobile browsers and redirect them to the mobile site (This will be a hard nut to crack...) But I am thinking of an index.html which holds the scripts that will differentiate between a mobile device and a web browser at the very first stage.

My plans relating to the upload function:

  • Have a graphical indicator of the upload progress.
  • Multiple uploads at a time OR upload sequences that start after each other (aka you can add 5 files, but they are not uploaded simultaneously)
  • Remove popup style and have it integrated in the website.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for this post, really interesting. Feel free to comment on my blog, I was solving similar problem.mobile website design

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  2. The work of a website designer is not limited to making sure that the website looks great and easy to navigate. It also involves some technicalities to improve Google ranking, increase visibility, and get high website conversion rate, which are all essential factors to the success of a business. Read More for more info.

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  3. Sorry, "PirateBox website" is misleading. By that I mean the UI, the page that is presented to the user who connects to the network.
    Since this is not connected to the internet, search engine friendliness is not a concern.

    ReplyDelete
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