On Monday, we got the following message via my county’s emergency messaging service:
Residents urged to prepare for hazardous weather conditions. Visit https://charmeck.org for the latest information.
When I clicked on the link, I got the image below (actual screenshot), which is mostly unreadable, because it’s formatted for a computer screen and not for my Samsung Galaxy 4 (which, BTW, has a bigger screen than most phones.)
Now the link came to me over my phone, delivered by text. So to read any of the information here, my options are these:
1) Use my fingers to make the screen bigger, which risks missing the important information (since I’ll only see a quarter or less of the page at any time), or
2) Go find my laptop and look for the link.
To make matters worse, the only substantive content was link to another page (also unreadable on my screen) anda video.
Most surveys on Internet usage are reporting that more than half of Americans’ Internet access is by smartphone, these days. And that share is going to be much higher when the stimulus to get on the web is delivered by phone. So why not format the content for the phone?
If it needs to be delivered by web – and needs to be read or watched – it has to be formatted for the phone, preferably automatically. The technology is there, so there’s no good excuse to do otherwise.
