It's not that surprising the direction that mobile web design has gone in. Namely, most designers have tried to provide for a platform that requires efficiency. Consequently, you get a lot of lists, some styled, some not even that, for menus and links.
LISTS
Notably, the colour scheme that goes alongside this list can have a highly influential effect on how you initially view the site. The three second judgement that people make on a desktop site will work equally the same for mobile, if not faster.
The top right site, mind[medium] works well because the large text would be easy to read whilst using your device mobile and also the contrast of black on white proves to be helpful in such circumstances too. Furthermore, of the four examples, it offers the biggest buttons, another good thing to sport in mobile interfaces.
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LISTS with ICONS/GRAPHICS/IMAGES
Again, this tries to take the list format efficiency one further by providing an icon that should hopefully help inform users of what to expect from the link. The only problem with this comes when the graphic is too broad in its meaning and so confuses more than helps.
These offer much visual interest and where colour is used, it really brightens what could otherwise be a very uninspiring page. For instance, which one would you rather be interested in reading? AZTEK or ARCHIMOBILE? Obviously it's a different story when it comes to which is the easiest to read.
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ICONS BASED MENUS
Inspired by the iPhone, or even going back to Nokias that adopted tile based main menus, the following are another viable option for navigation. Importantly however, it does take time to search through each of the icons to find what you are looking for. This wouldn't be the case with a big text link.
As can be seen, the icons make for a much slicker, more stylised interface. The only concern would be about how much extra data this would add to the page'a download, however I'm sure with thorough optimization, it could be remedied somewhat.
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ALL OUT IMAGES
Having never really seeing anything like this on the mobile web, its difference attracted me. In particular, the WATCHMEN site looks really good on a mobile device and indicates that design can play a part of mobile design. They look almost magazine like. It is this sort of design that the iPad will probably lend itself well to for e-magazine subscriptions. Its worth a try on the smaller screens too though I think, see what lessons can be learned.
Leading on from here, a number of sites seem to have managed a nice inbetween, utilising images and text for a layout that is more in keeping with .com designs.
It is this mixture of image and text that I think needs developing for mobile web. Too many text heavy sites (although having their place) need counterbalancing with a design scheme that can benefit.
These sites have certainly given me inspiration for wireframes/mock ups for my next artiface - users choosing a designed site over a hyper-efficient one.
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