Introduction

1. Introduction WAP or Wireless Application Protocol is a made up of various networks, servers, gateways, languages and protocols. Together they allow people with WAP devices, like mobile phones, to access information from a content provider. These devices do not need to be physically connected to download information so the user is free to move anywhere there is a signal for their device. The public often thinks of WAP as mobile internet. Vizzavi will provide content and services to customers across any number of access devices like the internet, or digital television, as well as WAP. Under this model content is held and defined centrally, and is then formatted for a particular device on demand. One of these devices is a WAP phone. A WAP phone has a mini browser built into it. This browser can read pages marked up in a language, the most common being WML (a mark-up language for WAP), but only with a very limited set of formatting commands. The phone is controlled using the keypad input keys and usually one key for scrolling and 'choosing' and one to four 'soft keys' that can have commands built into them. This document will deal with some issues for producer who have to work with WAP content. What is WAP? WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

2. Limited Characteristics of WAP WAP is marked by a number of characteristics that define it as a media. Small and limited display. WAP devices have a small and limited display screen. This is driven by the need to make WAP devices mobile (i.e. carried in your hand) and have a long battery life (a high definition colour screen would chew through batteries). This means that only small amounts of simple information can be show on a WAP screen. We cannot show everything on a WAP device that we can show on a PC or TV screen. Remember that because of this small screen, cross promotion, as used on the web, is impossible on WAP because of these space limitations. Small memory and slow connections. WAP devices have a limited memory in the device and slow throughput of data. This means that content must be divided into tiny pages called cards and programs can't be loaded and stored in the phone. The slow connection seeds mean that there is a considerable latent delay in loading decks. New technologies may give is fast connections and powerful mobile phones in the future. Clumsy input devices. Sadly, the input devices for WAP devices will always be limited. At the moment text must be input via the phones keypad. This is tiring and annoying for the user. So we must limit user interaction with Vizzavi WAP because it tries the patience of users. Producers should be aware that we cannot always fill in complex forms. What is WAP like? WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

3. What WAP Can Do Given its technical limitations, what can WAP do? Easy Navigation. Internet navigation on a PC typically shows several collections of links on one page. This is not possible on WAP. Only one list can be shown at once, however the point and click interface that made the web a success basically works the same way. However, this means that navigation must run to deeper levels than on Web. This means that organising information on WAP needs more care. Server side applications. WAP can run the same server side applications as the web. So as long as the data can be shown in a WAP browser, the phone can run the same powerful applications the Web can. Browsing. Although the small screen makes it difficult to read long pieces of text, a user will still read information they are really interested in. Users will become annoyed if information they find interesting has been truncated. Make phone calls. If the WAP device is a mobile phone, then the user can call a phone number that is on a WAP page. Unfortunately some phones kick the user out of WAP when they make the call. But producers should remember this strong link with telephony and voice portals. Be mobile. Obviously, although you cannot do everything on a WAP device, but you can put it in your pocket and take it to the pub with you. What is it good for? WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

4. What Makes Good WAP Content • Given its technical limitations, what kinds of content are good for WAP? Some people will use WAP for getting hard facts while on the move, others for browsing during an idle moment, still others will use it to enhance the communication capabilities of their phone. WAP is the newest media so none of these theories about audience type is provable yet. • WAP will be used to access high involvement content. WAP will be used by people who are on the move to get information they really need. Stock quotes, timetables and location-based services are examples of high involvement interaction. • WAP will be used to fill in spare time. People with spare time are compelled to play with their phones. Those without WAP phones now send SMS messages. Those with WAP phones will also ‘surf’ content and check their mail more than they should. • WAP will be used for communication. Finland: population 3 million, sends 1.5 million SMS messages a day. In effect the phone is being used as a text based answering machine. 42% of web use is e-mail based. The WAP phone combines both these methods of messaging. The concept is untried, but with its mobility, and lack of restrictions, receiving WAP based e-mail could get heavy use. • WAP as a PIM. WAP allows the customer to store personal information in a calendar, or addresses in an address book. The information not lost if the phone is lost or broken. Information on a Vizzavi customers computer is the same as on their phone. • WAP for M-Commerce. Because it is always in your hand, and can contain a complete fulfilment system. WAP devices open up new possibilities for commerce. Generally impulse and location based buys seem to be the most likely types of purchase. WAP navigation will always be limited, so products that can be found easily, perhaps through a search code from the homepage will most likely be bought. Also receipts and coupons through SMS will make M commerce much more palatable. What is it good for? WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

5. Publishing: Decks and Cards A WML marked up page must be sent through a WAP gateway to get from the origin server to the phone. The code is compiled on route on route so it can be sent to the phone more quickly, this differs from the packet data 'stream' that the internet uses.. WML "pages" are referred to as cards, these are sent in groups called decks. The amount of information that can be sent in a deck is tiny. At vizzavi we are working to a maximum size of 1300 bytes (un-compiled). That is not much. When the WML browser accesses a WML document (or deck), it reads the whole deck, and navigation between the cards in this deck is done without the need to load any more data. This means that navigation between cards in a deck is instant, so it is a good idea to load cards of related information into a single deck where possible. For example the deck that contains the Vizzavi 'home page' card also contains the 'channels' card. This means the user moving from home page to channels will not have to wait while another deck loads. Ideally, Vizzavi written content should be written to (approximately) 50 word 'chunks' which can be linked in a non linear fashion. This suits both the size limitation of the decks, and the amount that a user can read before they need a rest. Deck: size < 1300 bytes Cards WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

6. Publishing: A Style-sheet for WAP A network needs a consistent way of displaying information so that a user recognises the functions of a standard page, and producers do not waste time reinventing how a Vizzavi page should work. Each page has a title (limited to 15 characters). The card’s title should define a card’s function or place within the UI. Remember that some browsers scroll the title off the top of the page, while others don’t show the title at all. Don’t rely on the title being there. Card Title There will be a pictures on the top page of each major category. The function of this is to give users visual confirmation that they are on the category home-page.The picture has the Vizzavi logo on the left, so that our pages are branded (otherwise other companies can hijack our categories). Also the picture on the right, hints at the subject of the category. Category Icon Many WAP sites are presented only as a series of lists. The user is given no clue what a card might be for, they have to guess from the content on the card. Vizzavi will be a big WAP site, and hard to navigate. To make navigate easier, we will place up to two lines (30 characters) of navigational text at the start of most cards. Navigation text should always be helpful, never commercial, "vizzavi gives great content" is not helpful. Navigation Text At the end of a card, but before the divider, place links that are connected to the content of that card in some way. So a link that leads the user from this card to the next logical card would go here, for example. Content Links This divider separates the content of the card from the navigational links. Divider It is standard practice in WAP to have a ‘safe place’ link at the bottom of a page. Vizzavi will be a very large site so we have up to have three links used for navigation. One to Vizzavi home, one to the major category, then, if the cards is far enough down in the navigation hierarchy, one to the next sub-category higher. Navigational Links WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

7. Publishing: Navigation links Levels Sample Card The links on a WAP card fall into two main categories, those to do with the content of the card, and those that have to do with ancillary subjects like help, options and controls and navigation. If we lumped them together the user would have a terrible time sorting them out. At Vizzavi, we divide the two classes of link with a dotted line. Content above the line is about content, that below is tools and navigation. It is standard practice in WAP to have a ‘safe place’ link at the bottom of a page, usually a home button. Vizzavi will be a very large site so we have up to have three safe places. To avoid clutter there should never be more than three "safe paces". One takes the user back to Vizzavi home, this is always there, and is always the last link. One links to the major category, 'sports' for example, or 'mail'. Then, if the card is far enough down in the navigation hierarchy, there should be a link to the next sub-category higher. This is because there could be many levels between the category and the next level higher. Some levels do not count, the channels level, for example is skipped in this system because it can be accessed from the home page so easily. To include it would only add unnecessary levels of navigation. We never link to a card that could be more readily accessed by the Back button on the phone, to do so is a waste of space. For example the story summary level is skipped and users are taken to the "Headlines" level instead. Vizzavi home --- finance news --- latest news in finance. top stories daily commentary world markets technology …...…………………. finance home vizzavi home Channels Finance Navigation Links for" finance news" level look like this Finance News ------- section ------- - - page 2 - - The blue chip index rose 17.7 points or 0.27 percent to 6,604.0 by 1345 GMT, as it retreated from a high of 6,635.7 hit in Page 3 ………………………. Headlines top stories Vizzavi Home Top stories Headlines Top stories Summary Top stories Story Navigation Links for"top stories" story level look like this WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

8. Publishing: Directory Pages On WAP lists have to be short A list of 12 elements or under is called a List. A list of items on a page with over 12 elements will become difficult to use and could be too big to send. Therefore a list must never exceed 12 entries. A list of over 12 entries would usually not be divided into cards of 12 link and then daisy-chained together because users may want to go straight to an item beginning with ‘Z’. If a list has over 12 elements, it should be split into several different pages which are linked to the main page by alphabetical or numeric divisions. This is called a Directory. Card linked from the Directory card are List cards and each should have no more than 12 elements in it. This helps you decide how many divisions you will need. This also means that there can never be more than 144 entries in a directory structure. If there are over 144 entries in a list a search function should be used instead. For example, if you have 20 teams in a football division, they could be divided into two cards labelled A-K and L-M. If you have a lot of items in a directory, you may want to add a search function for the items in the directory. This can allow users who prefer search to browsing to access the data in the directory. List In standard list format for up to 12 entries. In a Direcory structure a List page has no Navigational Text. Also the Last card link connects to the next List card in the directory. Directory In List of over twelve entries entries are broken into alphabetical or numeric groups, each of up to twelve entries. Search function is added. Search is only for the category specified by the directory ----- vizzavi ----- One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve next 11-20 …………………….. vizzavi home ----- vizzavi ----- Choose one of these numbers. 1-10 11-20 21-30 or search by entering a keyword: [...] search …………………….. vizzavi home WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

9. Interaction with the user: Forms Using a form to get information Sometimes information is too complex to show in a list, for example getting a stock quote. Or possibly you need to several kinds of information to continue, like when asking for a username and password. In this case you need to get the user to input information into the WAP device. This is always the last resort for interacting with a user because it is so tiring to ‘type’ information into a phone. The more we make users fill out forms, the less time they will spend in Vizzavi. Which is why auto-login is such an important feature for WAP. Always specify what information you want from a user The producer can specify different kinds of input data Title of form should also show what information is needed. The producer should remember to specify a short title for a form element, because some browsers take the user to a different screen to input data. A form can be set to accept a specific type of data, for example only numbers. This is important to remember if you want users to enter currency amounts, for instance. Combining the navigational text with instructions for the form is good practice. WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

10. Soft Keys or links for navigation? Users only click on what they can see. Each WAP device has between none and four soft keys. The functions of these differ between phones which makes them hard to control. The internet has shown us that users will not respond to an option that they cannot immediately see. So a user cannot guess what the keys are meant to do. Soft key functions are useful for optional functions, like adding a page to a ‘favourites’ list.The other good quality of a soft key is that it can be accessed from anywhere in a card. This useful for long cards where the user may want to do something while half way down the card. While reading an e-mail for example, the user might want to save it to a folder. For more critical information, like navigational links, it is better practice to add the links to the bottom of the page. However there should always be a ‘Back’ (prev) soft key defined for each card in Vizzavi WAP. WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

11. Chunking Program: Chunking Process Source feed as a web page Story Card Summary • FTSE 100 drifts around 6,600, telecoms stay strong • LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 (LSE: UKX.L - news) drifted at higher levels around key psychological resistance at 6,600 on Wednesday afternoon after early Wall Street trade left an unchanged picture of strong software and telecom shares. • The blue chip index rose 17.7 points or 0.27 percent to 6,604.0 by 1345 GMT, after a peak of nearly up 40 points as it retreated from a high of 6,635.7 hit in early June. Volume was a moderate 900 million shares, with losers outnumbering gainers by five to four. U.S. shares were narrowly mixed in early trade. • Anglo-Dutch computer services firm CMG (LSE: CMG.L - news) surged 13 percent after reporting better-than-expected first half results, helping software firms deliver 10 points of FTSE 100 upside. Sema rose 7.1 percent, Logica (LSE: LOG.L - news) was up 5.8 percent and Sage climbed 5.1 percent. • Another 20 points of FTSE gains were provided by telecom stocks, with Cable & Wireless up 3.7 percent, British Telecom (LSE: BT.A.L - news) gaining 1.8 percent and Vodafone (LSE: VOD.L - news) 0.6 percent higher. • Leading FTSE 100 losers, hotels to drinks firm Bass (LSE: BASS.L - news) fell 5.5 percent, hit by brokers downgrades. Merrill Lynch cut its intermediate rating to "neutral" and Deutsche Bank cut its earnings per share forecasts. Content must always be xhtml compliant. ------- section -------- FTSE 100 drifts around 6,600, telecoms stay strong -------- Britain's FTSE 100 drifted at higher levels around key psychological resistance at 6,600 on Wednesday afternoon after early Wall Street trade left an unchanged picture of strong software and telecom shares. Page 2 ………………………. next Story headlines section Vizzavi Home ------- section ------- - - page 2 - - The blue chip index rose 17.7 points or 0.27 percent to 6,604.0 by 1345 GMT, after a peak of nearly up 40 points as it retreated from a high of 6,635.7 hit in early June. Anglo-Dutch computer services firm CMG surged 13 percent after reporting better-than-expected first half results, helping software firms deliver 10 points of FTSE 100 upside. Sema rose 7.1 percent, Logica was up 5.8 percent and Sage climbed 5.1 percent. page 3 ………………………. next Story hheadlines section Vizzavi Home Story Card ------- section -------- - - page 3 - - Another 20 points of FTSE gains were provided by telecom stocks, with Cable & Wireless up 3.7 percent, British Telecom gaining 1.8 percent and Vodafone 0.6 percent higher. Leading FTSE 100 losers, hotels to drinks firm Bass fell 5.5 percent, hit by brokers downgrades. Merrill Lynch cut its intermediate rating to "neutral" and Deutsche Bank cut its earnings per share forecasts. ………………………. next Story headlines section Vizzavi Home Headline and First Paragraph make up the first card Links to Web content must not appear Card-breaks must appear between paragraphs, if no paragraph then after a sentence, otherwise after a word Links added to card according to position in site. “next story” links into the Summary level of the next one in sequence. WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker

12. Chunking Program: Story Matrix ------ vizzavi------ dd/mm/yyyy 7.Seven 8.Eight 9.Nine 10.Ten 11.Eleven 12.Eleven next ……………………... section Vizzavi Home ------ vizzavi------ dd/mm/yyyy 1.One 2.Two 3.Three 4.Four 5.Five 6.Six next ……………………... section Vizzavi Home ------ Vizzavi ----- dd/mm/yyyy 13.Thirteen 14.Fourteen 15.Fifteen 16.Sixteen 17.Seventeen ………………………. section Vizzavi Home Some users will want to peruse headlines, other will only want a story summary, while others will need to read a whole story, no matter how long it is. The story matrix allows users to read text content at whatever level they choose. • Headlines level • Dateline • 6 Headlines per card • Navigation Links • Add all stories in feed ------ vizzavi------ Headline 3 summary first para page 2 ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi------ Headline 1 first para summary page 2 ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ Vizzavi ------ Headline 2 first para summary page 2 ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi ------ Headline 4 first para first para page 2 ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi ------ Headline 4 first para first para page 2 ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home • Summary Level • Headline • Summary of the story • Navigation Links ------ vizzavi------ Full Story 5 Story Story Story Story Story Story Next Story ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi------ Full Story 1 Story Story Story Story Story Story ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi------ Full Story 2 Story Story Story Story Story Story ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi------ Full Story 3 Story Story Story Story Story Story ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home ------ vizzavi------ Full Story 4 Story Story Story Story Story Story ………………………. next story headlines section vizzavi home • Full Story Level • 2nd, 3rd (and so on) paragraph of the story • Navigation Links WAP Developers’ Guide Document owner: Mac Walker