Tap. Pinch. Swipe.
These are all typical actions when using a smartphone. "Tap" is the same as a mouse click. "Swipe" is the same as scrolling.
On the other hand, "pinch" does not have a counterpart action when using a regular computer. Pinching is what you have to do to zoom in and out of a website that was not designed for mobile devices. Normal web browsers do have a zoom feature, but there's usually never a reason to use it.
You should be planning to include a mobile website in your advertising portfolio already. Don't simply rely on the new fancy smartphones, fast 3G cellular networks and even faster 4G networks to support your non-mobile website.
As you plan out your mobile site, make sure it fits nicely on a small screen without needing to pinch resize to see details. Naturally, you won't be able to fit all the information on a single 320x480 pixel screen, but don't be afraid to allow scrolling.
Ask the designer of your mobile site to maintain a thin width so it does not need to scroll left to right. No matter what type of mobile device a user has, it's always disorienting to force scrolling left to right at the same time you also need to scroll up and down to read.
So that's the bottom line of today's Nugget. It's short and simple. Don't let your mobile website have scrolling in 2 directions, only up and down.
