W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0

The mobileOK scheme allows content providers to promote their content as being suitable for use on basic mobile devices. This document provides an overview of the scheme and references the documentation that composes it.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This is an Editor's Draft of the W3C mobileOK Scheme. It follows a period of evolution during which the Working Group considered defining two levels of mobileOK conformance, each with its own set of tests. mobileOK is presented here as a simplified and unified scheme in which the relationship with the Best Practices document, the Basic Tests and the Checker is made explicit. It represents substantial change from previously published version.

The Working Group expects to publish this as a Note and not as a Recommendation track document.

Publication as a Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the Best Practices Working Group or by W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document has been produced by the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group as part of the Mobile Web Initiative. Please send comments on this document to the working group's public email list public-bpwg-comments@w3.org , a publicly archived mailing list.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

1. The mobileOK Scheme

mobileOK is designed to improve the Web experience for users of mobile devices by rewarding content providers that adhere to good practice when delivering content to mobile devices.

mobileOK says nothing about what may be delivered to non-mobile devices; furthermore, mobileOK does not imply endorsement or suitability of content. For example, it must not be assumed that mobileOK content is of higher informational value, is more reliable, more trustworthy, is or it not appropriate for children etc.

1.1 mobileOK Basic Tests

mobileOK Basic Tests [mobileOK] specifies a number of tests that HTTP responses must pass when a URI is requested with a specific set of HTTP headers in the HTTP request. The tests are designed to be machine processable and to provide confidence that content will display well on very basic mobile devices.

1.2 Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

mobileOK Basic Tests is itself based on Mobile Web Best Practices [BP], which provides a set of sixty guidelines for making content work well across a wide variety of mobile devices.

1.3 The Default Delivery Context

The HTTP Request headers used in mobileOK Basic Tests identify a hypothetical user agent called the "Default Delivery Context" (DDC). The values of the key properties of the DDC (screen with, formats supported and other basic characteristics) are set at the minimum possible, while still supporting a Web experience.

The DDC is thus not a target to aspire to, it merely sets a base line below which content providers do not need to provide their content. It is expected that content providers, as well as targetting DDC level devices will wish also to provide non-mobileOK experiences for more advanced mobile devices.

1.4 The mobileOK Trustmark

mobileOK provides a icon representing a claim that the content on which the icon is found can be requested so that the response conforms to mobileOK Basic 1.0 Tests [mobileOK] and hence will provide at least a functional user experience on mobile devices. Specifically, the claim may only be made of a URI that when dereferenced in the manner described in [mobileOK] yields a response that passes all the tests contained in mobileOK Basic Tests. Such a claim says nothing about other experiences that may be provided at the same URI, when dereferenced in a different way (e.g. with different User-Agent and Accept HTTP headers).

The trustmark is most appropriately used on desktop representations of a resource for which a mobileOK representation is also available. In such a situation it acts as a signal to a desktop user that the content or service they are using is also available on a mobile device. Display of the mobileOK trustmark is usually inappropriate on a mobile device since whether the content is usable on their device or not will be fully apparent without it.

When displaying a mobileOK trustmark, the image should be served from the same server as the resource, but in any case not from the W3C site.

The trustmark is a W3C copyright image which may only be used in accordance with the W3C mobileOK license [LICENCE].

1.5 mobileOK Checker

A software package known as the mobileOK Checker [CHECK], has been developed to provide automated checking of conformance. This package is used to provide a Web interface as part of the W3C Validator. The package is in Java, and is open source. It is available under the W3C License [@@link].

2. Acknowledgements

The editor would like to thank members of the BPWG for contributions of various kinds.

W3C mobileOK Scheme 1.0

Editor's Draft 6 November 2008

Abstract