The Top 10 most beautiful iPhone sites in the world (that we didn’t do).

We are lucky people. We are currently working with a fantastically forward thinking client, who is keen to do beautiful things in mobile. To show them what sort of sumptuous delights are possible, I have been scouring the mobile webnet, looking for list sites highlighting good visual design for smartphones.

But of course, no one seems to think outside of iPhone, so I have reined back my search to those sites that are optimised for Safari mobile…

..and yet still there is no site that I would rate as actually talking about proper visual design for mobile websites.

There are, of course loads that list sites that work well, and those that list sites that have good UI. Some will go chapter and verse about the most useful sites. Some will just list the big brands that have gone mobile.

But the most beautiful?

Not a sausage. I was most miffed by this. On the web you cannot move for sites that will show you delightful morsels of interactive beauty. There are whole search tools dedicated to showing heavy, hard to use, yet gorgeous flights of Flash based fancy. Yet it appears that visual design is still considered a secondary thing on the mobile internet. Time that changed.

So, in the name of Saint Simon of Waterfall, I will put aside my UE hat, connect to a good WiFi signal, and show you the sites that gave me maximum visual pleasure.

1. Information Architects

http://www.informationarchitects.jp

Start clean. Here is a nice, cleanly designed blog based site that allows immediate access
to content, so avoiding extra clicks. Really nice use of a drop down menu at the top of the
homepage to access content areas.

2. Burger King – King’s phone

http://www.bk.com/en/us/kings-phone/index.html

An icon based console that makes some quite dull content look
interesting. The homepage design is kept within the page so there is
no scrolling, and the following content makes use of expandable menus
to stop users having to click through too many pages. The icon design
is very rich and engaging.

3. Marina yachting

http://www.marinayachting.it/mobile

A fashion site that makes full use of graphics, with semi transparent
overlays. Again the homescreen is kept above the fold (no scrolling).
The homepage navigation means that there is an unnecessary second
level required however. The clothes content is nicely displayed in a
carousel, pulling content to the phone as it is required. This is not
as slick as if the images were preloaded, but it allows more
flexibility with the site.

It is clear this is just a ‘showroom’ site, as there is no clear call
to action, and no way to order or buy the clothes, or even get any
further information. However, for it’s limited capabilities it is
very pretty.

4. D&G Fashion Show

http://www.dolcegabbana.mobi/deg/fashionshows

Very interesting site that uses a lot of nice tricks. A user slides
from page to page, rather than a new page opening up. Also uses a nice
carousel navigation, and if you click on “Backstage” and “Info”, it
uses a sliding content overlay. Nice.

5. Sevnth Sin Design

http://m.sevnthsin.com/new/iphone

A really interesting way of navigating. Instead of clicking on a link,
a user can drag an icon into the centre circle, and is then taken to
the relevant page. It’s a shame that they have implemented it in such
an ugly way!

6. Nike basketball

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikebasketball_mobile/en_US/productdetail?m=iphone&start=0&productId=304415

As you can see from the url, this is a database driven site, very
simple, but really sylishly executed. Again using the carousel
navigation, it shows that portrait product pages with a lot of
supporting text can work really well.

7. The Guardian

http://m.guardian.co.uk

Widely recognised as the best mobile internet version of a newspaper
site. Allows for quick initial navigation using a drop down and search
box, then provides the rest of the day’s news in a fast and easy to
read fashion. From a usability perspective, this is excellent, even it
is not “Beautiful”.

8. OMG! By Yahoo

http://omg.yahoo.com

I never thought I would say that a Yahoo site was nice but… The
simple, graphical headlines with big copy overlays suit the “magazine”
style of the content perfectly. However, when you click on the
headlines is the real treat – a preview window just slides up over the
image, meaning the user can get a preview of the content before
clicking away from the homepage.

9. EBay mobile

http://wap.ebay.co.uk

EBay is a fantastically focussed experience – especially when you
register,  and it can serve you content specific to you. However,
there is an issue with the experience. The default length for a list
of products is 5 items. This is incredibly frustrating if you are on a
slower connection and have a list that has 100 or more items.

10. JQTouch demos

http://jqtouch.com/preview/demos/main/

This is not a site exactly, more a series of demos of the sort of
thing that can be done on iPhone on the mobile internet. The strongest
ones to show are the Animations ones. This site inspires us regularly!

This list, it must be said, took ages to put together. While everyone wants to shout about their new mobile presence, few actually remember to put in the URL. Even less organise a good redirect from their main site, and mobile specific search is still officially rubbish. But that is for another piece…

So I daresay that some out there will disagree. Some may be downright rude about my choice. Some may even have sites they want to send in to add to the list, or usurp it.

If enough people do, I will gladly update this list, and make it into a feature. Respond away!