07 Feb Deciding on your mobile strategy

Designers are blogging all kinds of advice about what mobile strategy we should follow, but there is no single approach. Each company or website needs to look at what best fits there needs and make a decision based on there own users. Are the users of there website always on the go? Or will they be looking at large-scale images at home from there Desktop computers. Each new website needs to base there decision on there budget and what there clients need the most.

Lets look at the definitions:

• Responsive Design: Designed for multiple devices, adjusting the design based on the device. Equal, but different.
• Adaptive Design: Designed specifically for a mobile or tablet experience. Not equal and separate.
• Native Application: A program designed specifically for iOS, Android or Windows. Different and separate.
• No mobile design: Designed for desktop and tablet only.

In the field of Web design and development, we’re quickly getting to the point of being unable to keep up with the endless new resolutions and devices. For many websites, creating a website version for each resolution and new device would be impossible, or at least impractical. Should we just suffer the consequences of losing visitors from one device, for the benefit of gaining visitors from another? Or is there another option?

Though we don’t recommend it for everyone, Our best choice for adapting your website to fit the most users is Responsive Web Design:

Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market.

Again, each new website needs to base there decision on there budget and what there clients need the most.  Are you still not sure what the best route for you is? Or do you have some questions about Responsive Web Design or How much it cost? Please feel free to fill out our Web-Design Questionnaire or Contact us with your questions or comments.