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Hey guys.
This is Luke Wroblewski, author of Mobile First.
And I'm here to talk to you guys sort of about what's
happening with all these devices connecting to the
internet and how in the world do we cope.
If you've been paying attention, you've seen that
lots and lots of smartphones have made into people's hands.
And then lots and lots of tablets.
And now we're entering the stage where operating systems
like Microsoft's Windows 8 are really starting to blend
what's a laptop, what's a tablet.
Companies like Samsung are starting to blend what's a
tablet, and what's a phone.
And so you really start coming up with a very diverse range
of computing devices that people are using to access the
web, play with software, and work with software.
And at first, this seems really darn
intimidating, right?
How do you go for designing something that works on a
small screen, a medium-sized screen, a portable screen, a
stationary screen, a desk-sized screen?
And those screens can sort of be high resolution and low
resolution.
You can use touch with them.
You can use keyboards.
You can use mice.
You can use styluses.
Ah!
It's kind of overwhelming.
The good news is as we've sort of followed along on this
progression, all these computer manufacturers have
really started to fill in the blanks.
And what I mean by that is whereas you used to have a
real clear line between a mobile phone, and a tablet,
and a laptop, now, you have really have a
clean spectrum almost.
So mobile phones go from 3 inch screens up until about 6
inch screens.
Tablets start at about 7 inch screens.
Roll up to 11 inch screens, laptops continue that trend
from 11 to 17.
And then up comes a desktop.
I'm simplifying a little bit.
But the key message there is actually it's
a continuum, right?
It's not these really clean breaks.
And what that means is you sort of have to consider the
whole range.
Same thing's happening with touch.
Used to be that touch was just for smartphones and tablets.
Now you've got laptops with touch, desktops with touch.
And similarly, you have smartphones with keyboards and
cursors just like you have laptops with
keyboards and cursors.
And so this sort of evening out of all the capabilities
across these devices--
while it may seem like a curse,
it's actually a blessing.
Because that means we can get to one design, a design that
works across all screens, a design that always works for
touch, a design that always works for
a cursor and keyboard.
That kind of consistency, to a certain
extent, is very freeing.
Because it means we only need one kind of web design--
a multi-device web design.
The part that's challenging is creating a multi-device web
design is different than what we've been doing on
the web until now.
And I think therein lies the opportunity and
challenge for designers.
And hopefully, you guys are on top of that.
There's lots of things happening on the
web to help you out.
So Godspeed and good luck.