The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in Cambridge has announced the release of alpha version of mobileOK Checker, software that automatically evaluates Web pages for compliance with the group’s guidelines for improving users’ browsing experiences on phones and other mobile devices.

The company has invited Web authors to run the alpha release of the W3C mobileOK checker, to make their content work on a broad range of mobile devices. Dominique Hazael-Massieux, lead of mobile Web initiative activity lead at W3C, pointed out that making a Web site work on a mobile device is easier once the users have the right tool, and remarked in a statement, “Now is the time to reach more people by making site W3C mobileOK.”

The W3C mobileOK checker is the latest addition to W3C's suite of validation services. Hazael-Massieux stated that W3C mobileOK checker runs the tests defined in the W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 Candidate Recommendation.

The tests are based upon W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, published as part of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative. The Best Practices describes how to reduce the cost of authoring and to improve the mobile browsing experience.

Hazael-Massieux added that any tool that implements the Basic Tests can verify automatically whether content is mobile friendly. He also informed that as an integral part of the W3C standardization process, “W3C invites mobile Web experts and the community at large to review the checker and the mobileOK Basic Tests.”

Hazael-Massieux believed that with Web sites which conform to the W3C mobileOK content guidelines, search engines can better tailor results for a mobile environment, benefiting authors and their audience alike.

W3C is an international consortium where member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards, and according to reports, over 400 organizations are members of the consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT (News - Alert) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide.

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Anshu Shrivastava is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.