Specifics of website development for Japanese mobile phones; testing?

Question

Is there any good advise on developing websites specifically for Japanese mobile phones? As I see it so far, the site basically has to be bare-bone HTML, mostly <p>s and <br>s and tiny, compressed postage stamp graphics if need be. There are also some UTF-8 codes for pre-defined graphics. Are there any other conventions one should be aware of?

Also, what are good ways to test mobile sites? I use Opera's "mobile view" simulator, but that only goes so far. There are some simulators provided by the mobile phone corps, but they're either horribly outdated, won't install or produce mojibake on my English-language test system (and I don't have the nerve to install another OS right now). An actual phone doesn't work during development as it's not on the intranet.

Answer 1

Whatever you develop for a Japanese market may not be so straightforward as it seems. I've heard some comments that the Japanese mentality is quite different which is why their attempts to design user interfaces for the US/European market are not so successful. I suppose the opposite would be right too. Try to check out already existing Japanese sites to get an idea what may be different. The arrangement of UI components, categorization of products, menu elements are not exactly where they should logically be. If you're still in the process, it may do good to pause and look around before continuing.

Another thing that I have heard is that Japanese are kind of addictive to mobile phones, carry them and toy around with them most of the time. If that is true, you might reconsider how to increase the effectivenes of whatever you're doing knowing this peculiarity.

As for testing, we all know that the rendering incompatibilities of mobile devices are by far greater than of our convenient desktop browsers. I suppose, at the end you would want to check your site on a few real devices.

Well, just my thoughts... :)

Answer 2

It's probably worth being aware of the prevalance of iMode devices in Japan - which run on cHTML. There are some useful notes on developing for iMode here.

For maximum compatibility, you might consider a rendering library such as WALL, which will automatically tailor markup to the device on which it is being viewed. I wrote about a similar process in last July's php|architect magazine, but PHP may not be relevant to your needs.

Regarding testing, you might want to look at DeviceAnywhere, which allows you to "remote control" a wide number of devices for the purposes of testing. It's non-free (and a little clumsy to use) but it does support Japanese handsets, and there's a free trial.

Answer 3

Nowadays, all JP phones feature full-browsers with CSS support (like the safari on iPhone).

Most users, however, access content through their provider's proprietary platform. For a site to work in JP (commercially, i mean), you will want to be listed on their "approved sites" directory.

There are three main platforms, one for each major provider:

• Imode for NTT DoCoMo subscribers (link to NTT dev guide here)
• Yahoo! Ketai for Softbank (ex Vodafone) subscribers (link to Softbank dev guide)
• EZweb for au KDDI subscribers (link to AU KDDI dev guide)

For having done several sites for JP mobile market (i work and live in JP), I would recommend testing with the dev kit offered by each provider. Your site will need to satisfy each provider's unique set of quality standards, and will be verified by a QA person at that company.

Also, by experience, I can tell you that NTT and Softbank standards are easy to pass, while AU will give you a hard time for the tinyest details. On my last project, I had to go in person at the AU KDDI center to test my site on every single phone since 2000 (they have a special room just for testing).

Oh, yeah, and I would also recommending adding asian language support on your PC. On XP, you can do that by going to Control Panel > Regional Language Options > Advanced. Set the "Language for non-Unicode programs" to Japanese, and tadaa! you can run japanese softwares.

Cheers !

Answer 4

I'm a founder of mobalean, a software development consultancy specializing in mobile development in Japan. We've created a wiki that has English language information for mobile developers in Japan. The wiki is still in its infancy, but hopefully you can find something there to help you.

As for testing, a quick and easy way is to use FireMobileSimulator, a firefox plugin that does some simple reformatting of a page based on the selected handset. It certainly doesn't replace testing on a handset, but is particularly useful if you don't have access to the emulators as you aren't developing on a Windows box.