Mobile Content Adaptation

Abstract

The mobile environment presents numerous challenges to users and developers alike. Ideally, mobile content should be designed to enhance a user's experience rather than simply serve up the same content originally designed for other platforms. This chapter presents a study of techniques for “content adaptation”, the process of reformatting content and displaying it optimized for a mobile device. Adaptation techniques consist of a varied number of mechanisms by which content is adapted into a format more “friendly” to mobile devices. The idea of “friendly” can range from simple accessibility requirements to a dynamic redesign. Included in this discussion is a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of current techniques. Examples of different techniques are presented and illustrated along with the system framework necessary to implement them.