# Design issues for smartphones?



## IanS (Aug 25, 2006)

(Forum search function seems to produce zero results no matter what I type, is there a glitch?)

So quick question.
Is anyone one these forums answering questions about designing for phones?

I have particular issues with 'viewport', for example.
Do I make the site 320x480 for iPhones? Using viewport does not produce desired results - very confused!

Have searched web, found endless opinions (some of which are out of date), and conflicting advice.

Not new to web design but totally new to having to produce a different version of existing site for viewing on phones.

Anyone point me at a reliable source of info (yes, have been to W3C... none the wiser really! :huh: )

Apologies if this is in wrong forum.


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## Fjandr (Sep 26, 2012)

Try this site. It's designed to teach the basics of adding mobile content support to a website.


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## IanS (Aug 25, 2006)

Some good tips on here, thanks. (But the author does say at the end that comments are closed due to advice being a year old.)
Have complex issues with a pre-existing site and deciding what to use and what to start from scratch. Lots of files to consider.
My main problem at the moment is checking what the site will look like on various mobiles. The emulators I've found are next to useless.
I'm not an app developer so don't want to pay Apple $99 just to check what one site looks like on iPhones, and then there are all the others.
In the middle of a nightmare here!
To be more confident I'm thinking about using JQuery Mobile to start over for the front and main pages, then my own CSS for the rest of the pre-existing files (posts and articles, etc. - hundreds of them), and hope for the best!


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## Fjandr (Sep 26, 2012)

You could use Javascript and PHP to check the screen resolution and use specific CSS pages for the more common screen sizes.


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## IanS (Aug 25, 2006)

Did find some later excellent pages on that same site, btw. Also contains workaround for the fact IE doesn't do media-queries. Was trying to avoid having to rethink the layout for each different set of pages, but this guy's ideas means I only have to re-think once! No solution for testing though...


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## Fjandr (Sep 26, 2012)

Unfortunately, the only way to test is to have the hardware available in most cases.


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## IanS (Aug 25, 2006)

Combination of seeing failed pages on the server's raw stats and borrowing friend's phones for a minute! Can't even imagine owning all those phones just to check!! Anyway, it'll make me stick to the scrict code...


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## fatihalp (Nov 29, 2015)

use of CSS media queries could solve the issue.


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