Due to mobile device limitations, it is wise to be careful with graphics. There are a few simple rules to follow when creating graphics for smartphones.
Do not embed text in graphics since the screen is often too small to be able to read the text.
- If the graphic is too large, the visitor might need to scroll horizontally and vertically to see it. This can become frustrating for your visitor since vertical scrolling is not supported on all smartphones.
- Multimedia has limited mobile device support and works differently on each smartphone.
- Plug-ins that work well on PC's do not necessarily work on Mobile devices
Flash - iPhone and Blackberry do not support flash, while Android does support Flash. Also, since flash scales to the browser size flash simulations that work well on a PC may be scaled too small to be usable on a smartphone
- PDF - PDFs may work on a smartphone, but since PDFs scale to the browser size PDFs are typically scaled too small to be usable on a smartphone
- Movies- some smartphones support movie formats, but even then, the user must be in a hot spot area that supports the data transfer speeds necessary for watching movies.
- HTML5, the web standard supported by most popular mobile browsers, including iPhone and Android, has a built in audio (OGA) and video (OGV) capability. When you save audio and video as OGA and OGV your mobile web visitor is not required to download a plug-in to access rich media.