The way your customers use the web is changing. There is a growing trend in the use of mobile smart phones and tablets as opposed to desktop based computers. Users now expect their mobile experience to be as good as their desktop experience. A bad mobile experience when viewing your web site can cost you customers as they are unlikely to revert to a desktop to continue viewing.
Smartphone ownership is growing at an almost exponential rate, with an increasing number of people spending more and more of their time online using their phones rather than a desktop or laptop computer. The use of smart phones rather than desktops increased from 30% to 51% over the year from 2011 to 2012 and shows no signs of slowing the relentless pace. Smartphone users are far more likely to spend money or click adverts while they are online than their desktop counterparts. A large number of websites derive the majority of their traffic from smartphone users, but many of these websites are also designed primarily with desktop users in mind and little or no consideration is given to smartphone viewers.
A typical web site designed primarily for desktop viewers will display on a smart phone as a small compressed layout and will require magnification and excessive horizontal scrolling to view fully. Even when magnified, some items such as menu links will be small and closely grouped causing problems clicking on the correct link. Plus some features specific to desktops - including flash, audio and video - will not work on certain smartphones.
“Responsive web design (often abbreviated to RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).” Source Wikipedia
Instead of having to enlarge the screen view and scroll horizontally and vertically (first view), the user only has to vertically (second view). Images that were side by side are now displayed one above the other and automatically resized for the smartphone screen size. The navigation menu is now on the top right hand side and when clicked or tapped displays a set of buttons more suited to smartphone use.
Contact us by phone or email to discuss upgrading your existing site or providing you with a brand new responsive web site to take advantage of the surge in smartphone and tablet usage.