The way in which people use websites is changing
In 2012, users accessing the Internet on their mobile devices will reach over 113 million, with more than 68 million using their smartphones to shop online. In fact, by 2014 it’s predicted that mobile Internet usage will exceed that of desktop Internet usage.
To celebrate these statistics, we’ve revamped our own website to make it responsive to the growing number of mobile platforms including the iPhone, iPad and Android handsets. “Responsive” means that instead of having separate “mobile friendly” websites, we have a single site that is styled differently based on the screen size and capabilities of the device being used to view it. Long term this is more efficient and easier to manage, since there isn’t duplicate content to maintain across multiple sites.
Mobile users don’t have the luxury of a large screen or mouse pointer, and are often online whilst on the move. For this reason, a responsive website should have the following characteristics when viewed on a handheld device:
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Web page text should be clear and legible on even the smallest of screens, without having to zoom in and out of the page.
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Content should be concise and to the point – less important information can be hidden from view and organised on separate pages to help de-clutter and make scrolling faster.
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Sidebars that wouldn’t normally fit on-screen should be restructured in order to fit on the page elsewhere (for example, at the bottom of the page instead of to the side).
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Navigational elements should be adjusted to avoid “fat finger syndrome” (this is where users struggle to hit tiny links or nav-buttons that are smaller than their fingers).
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Images should be scaled to fit on small or narrow screens.
If you’re currently viewing our site on a mobile device and have any comments, or if you’d like to discuss the design of your own “mobile friendly” website, please don’t hesitate to contact us.