Responsive web design – break down those barriers
How often do you use your smart phone or tablet to search the web? If you’re anything like the rest of the population the answer is more than ever before. Figures show that mobile traffic is increasing month on month and data from Microsoft Tag suggests that:
50% of all local searches are performed on mobile devices
What this means for you depends very much on how your website has been built.
For those of you with older websites, the chances are that your site, designed with desktop browsing in mind, is not going to display well on mobile phones or tablet computers. In this convenience-crazy world we have created your dear browsers (who you have invested time and money to get) will not wait around to decipher your messy-looking web site, they will move on to the next one. This means you are potentially missing out on 50% of all search traffic for your product or service.
How to fix it? Instead of having a desktop version and a mobile version of your site, you need to ask you web design agency about responsive design. In this age of flexibility, having one single website that displays equally well on a variety of devices will maximise the potential of your web traffic and remove a potential barrier to them contacting you. Responsive design aims to make your site easily readable without layout or scrolling issues, giving you clarity, usability and style in one handy, flexible package.
There are loads of different ways your website designer can achieve a responsive design, but let them worry about the technicalities, email enquiries@esterling.co.uk to discuss your needs.
Disruptive Design and thoughts on the Responsive Summit
Last week a few of the web industry’s movers and shakers got together at a quickly arranged meet-up under the rather grandiose title of the Responsive Summit. They talked about how, in the post-PC world, web agencies can deliver websites for the reality of a multitude of web enabled devices. Aside from minor moaning on Twitter about the perceived elitism of the internet Illuminanti deciding upon the direction we all need to take, the response to the Summit has been positive. And the information I have taken from it is proving very interesting.
The hard truth that agencies like ours are facing is that mobile is not only on the rise, but will become the primary internet platform. This was recognised years ago and people boarded the responsive bandwagon thanks to such now legendary articles as Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Web Design. In tandem with this a small number of people started doing all web design in the browser. The latest movement to pick up steam is Mobile First, whereby sites are designed for phones first and desktops second.
The Responsive Summit was an attempt to view all these developments in light of business realities and offer ideas of how agencies should move forward. So far, one of the major issues discussed is the applicability of the old print design method that has been passed down to the web. In this set-up Photoshop ‘proofs’ are produced for sign-off by clients before being constructed into a website, pixel for pixel. The argument is that this is ridiculous in light of the fact that these sites will now be viewed on screens of massively varying dimensions and resolutions.
Is the answer to produce proofs for a variety of screen widths? This would prove to be exhaustive and expensive work. The suggestion then is to follow what at first glance appears to be a process more in line with that old favourite of developers: agile. This brings the new philosophies together within an iterative development framework with designers working closely with developers to produce working responsive mock-ups for delivery to the client. Using a mobile first mindset and developing primarily in the browser the hope is that we can deliver sites that meet the clients requirements that are workable across the vast swathe of devices on the market.
This would be a large change to the established waterfall development pattern that agencies and clients are used to. Can agencies change their methods so completely? And will the client buy into this?
More information is still coming out of the Responsive Summit and there is a lot to digest, but this is the start of the conversation we all need to have. The future is both exciting and daunting for web developers…