Primarily, mobile web design is knowing that the user will be working from a much smaller screen than you're used to designing for. It's knowing that your user will be "On The Go", and will not have time for eye-candy when they want to know something. You might even put your menu lower down on the page, after giving them some information they've come to that page for.
People go to http://M.SpaceLaunchInfo.Com looking for information on the next rocket launch from the Canaveral Spaceport. Why would I waste their time asking what they want? I give it to them first, then ask them what menu choices they might be further interested in.
FAQ's need to be handled differently as well. On a desktop page, you can have one, long page, but mobile phones may not be able to hold the entire page. http://SpaceLaunchInfo.Com/faq.html http://M.SpaceLaunchInfo.Com/faq
When providing schedules for trade show conferences, they don't want to monkey around with maneuvering the screen. They can Menu Choice the day (which works from any day they get to), Then they are given the times of day to get to what's going on NOW, which is farther down the screen. Non-touchscreen phones are harder to maneuver than screens you can flick with your finger. Be sure to test your pages on an old "flip-phone", and not just the new stuff. http://H.PH2.Mobi http://h.ph2.mobi/07-17/ (Menu choice 2 from any page)
The thing is, a Mobile Web Page can be used from any mobile phone with a web browser, while an iPhone or Android app can ONLY be used from that type of mobile phone.
Something that not everyone has figured out is that the "*" and "#" keys also respond to the "accesskey" component of an anchor tag. It's not just the numbers. In fact, I use the "* 0 #" graphic so the Touchscreen crowd can access those selections, since they don't have hardware buttons they can hit. And I want them to find the "#" key when it isn't being used so we can have our fun with them.
Ozzie
Robert Osband, Computerist
http://PhonePhriendly.Com http://M.SpaceLaunchInfo.Com