How to Use Opera's Mini Simulator to See Your Website on a Mobile Device

You've heard that websites need to be accessible on mobile devices, but how can you check your website to see how it would appear on a mobile device? One way is to use the Opera Mini Simulator.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• The URL of your website published on the internet
• A web browser

The Opera Mini Simulator

1. The Opera browser company makes a special browser for mobile devices called the Opera Mini. Opera provides a simulator using that browser that is helpful when testing your site for accessibility of mobile devices.
   
   Navigate to www.operamini.com/demo. The simulator takes a few seconds to open. Be patient.
2. Enter the URL of the site you want to test in the field beginning with www. Use the keyboard or the keys on the simulated phone to enter the URL in the field where the www waits for more input. Click "OK" using your mouse.
   
   If you don't know the URL, a search can be done. Search in the Opera Mini works just like search in any other browser.
3. When your site appears, use the keyboard or your mouse to navigate. You can move down the page by clicking the arrow keys on the phone simulator. Or you can use your mouse to pull the scroll bar.
   
   If you open the eHow site, you see a simulation like that in the image at the introduction to this article.
4. The Opera Mini 4 beta simulator shows an entire page on the small screen. At the time of this writing, a beta version of the Opera Mini 4 Simulator is available at Opera Mini If you open the eHow site in the beta 4 simulator, you see a tiny representation of the entire eHow home page. Just click on the area of the page you want to zoom in on. You can also navigate using the arrow keys on the simulator.
5. If you find that your site is unusable on the mini simulator, you need to consider redoing the site in a more accessible manner. Two hallmarks of an accessible site are separation of content from presentation with CSS, and good HTML structure that correctly marks up content as what it represents.

Tips & Warnings

• The Opera Mini browser can be downloaded to many mobile devices including BlackBerries, iPhones and many types of mobile phones.
• The Opera Mini Simulator only shows you how your website looks on a device that uses the Opera Mini browser. If a mobile device does not have the Opera Mini browser installed, your website will not look like what you see in the Simulator.