The Internet just isn’t limited to your computer screen anymore. You can literally get on the Internet from your phone, Ipad, Kindle and other mobile devices at anytime or from anywhere. Just walk into your local coffee shop or restaurant during lunch and you’ll see that almost every other person is surfing the Internet from their phone, laptop or tablet.
Are you using this well-known knowledge about your potential new customer or client to your advantage by ensuring your own website is adapting to these mobile devices? Think about your website, or better yet, pull your website up on your mobile device. How does it read? Is the content and images unreadable or undistinguisable unless you zoom in? Does the content and images move around in a ways they aren’t supposed to? If so, you might want to consider making your website responsive.
What is responsive website design? According to Stanford University it’s “a website that responds to the device that accesses it and delivers the appropriate output for it uses responsive design. Rather than designing multiple sites for different-sized devices, this approach designs one site but specifies how it should appear on varied devices.”
The advantages to having a responsive website are great. With everything going mobile now, it’s only natural that your businesses should be following suit. A responsive website ensures that you don’t lose valuable content on your website when it opens on a phone or tablet. A responsive website will adapt and show the relevant information without sacrificing readability. The adaptive screen offers a much more user friendly space to work with.
Here is our website and how it works with an IPhone (click to view larger):
Notice that the text isn’t small. It’s the same size as on a standard size monitor, so there is no need to zoom in. The images and text fit perfectly on the screen, which results in nothing being where it shouldn’t be. The menu is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate between pages. You no longer have to try and lightly tap that tiny navigation like you would on a non-responsive websites. You don’t miss out on any valuable information. Everything is there; it’s just adapting to the size of your viewing screen.
Is it absolutely 100% vital that you have a responsive website? No, absolutely not. But with everything going mobile, it would be a good thing to have at the beginning of your website development or as part of your marketing plan. It makes for a better user experience, shows that your company is innovative and on top of the latest technologies and targets those frequent mobile users who may disregard your website/business if they have a hard time navigating your site on their mobile device.
It makes for a better user experience, which shows that your company is innovative and on top of the latest technologies. It also targets those frequent mobile users who may disregard your website/business if they have a hard time navigating your site on their mobile device.
If you need help with making your website responsive, contact BoldThink. We will help bring your company into the year 2012 with a responsive website of your own.
