'Mobile first' says Cognifide CEO

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 09 August 2011 17:26

Business IT - Technology

A marketing executive is advocating development for mobile devices should come first, with conventional web browsers taking a back seat.

The way ahead for web developers is "mobile first", according to Miro Walker, CEO of Cognifide.

Cognifile is a marketing technology company operating from London and Poland, and serving well-known brands including Skype, Virgin Mobile, TNT, Allianz, Roche and Investec.

Mr Walker argues that trying to design content for use in a desktop browser and then attempting to scale it down for increasingly popular mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is unlikely to succeed due to the compromises involved.

He advocates generating units of content in one place, with some awareness that it will be used on different platforms in different combinations. For example, a piece of text should not refer to an accompanying video as it might not be available on certain devices.

Another aspect of this principle is that each message should be reduced to its essentials. "It changes your whole way of thinking about content," he said, though it does pose a challenge for content creators.

Mobile is social, and social is mobile - see page 2.