One of the trends that we have been discussing is how mobile is so pervasive in the modern world and growing fast in the developing world. We have discussed this as it relates to mobile apps and how they are helping businesses connect with their customers in a very intimate way. What we have talked less about, is how our websites need to be set up for responsive design.
What is responsive design? It is a new approach to building your website so that it allows your site to change sizes and format to the different sizes of screens that your site may encounter. This will allow your site to be viewed on a mobile phone or a tablet device and for the site to stretch wider or shrink to a smaller screen, without losing its aesthetic integrity.
Along with building mobile apps, we also help companies move to a responsive design for their website as part of Efficience’s focus around mobile and the mobile experience. We do this with a highly creative approach that gives users a site that becomes their own identity, rather than filling in some boxes from a template-built site. It is understandable that people use a template site to get a website up at a low cost. Today, your site is the face of your company and what everyone sees when there is any possible thought about you at all. Leaving this first impression to a low-cost, same-as-everyone-else solution may not be the best thing for credibility and confidence.
If you want to see how this works, just go to your site on a mobile device and see what comes up. If the site looks the exact same as on a desktop, and all the tabs are squeezed together, your site is not responsive. This makes it hard for people to get the info they need from you quickly and readily. These are not the things we want to accomplish with our clients and potential customers.
An article from BI Intelligence, titled The Rise of Responsive Design as a Mobile Strategy – Pros and Cons, links back to Google’s site as they recommended responsive designs as the best strategy for smartphone-optimized websites. Add to that a report by Flurry Analytics, which says that there will be 2 billion mobile devices being used by people all over the globe by 2014, and you have all the evidence you need that responsive is the best way to ensure your site is adjusted for all devices.
What are you doing to make sure that you site is set up to be seen easily on all mobile and tablet devices?