| A quick look at your Google Analytics will tell you if you are already late to the game. It is actually shocking how often mobile devices are being used to access Websites these days – just look at the stats on one of our client’s websites. |
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| An example of how we have dealt with mobile issues for one client is explained below. Woodberry Kitchen wanted a very immersive and creative Website experience, which works great on browsers with fast connections. |
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| However, many of their customers would inevitably be pulling the site up on their iPhones to get basic info like directions, that night’s menu, etc. Woodbery didn’t want a dry and sterile mobile experience to be served up, but we knew we had to limit the scope of the experience to work on a mobile 3G device. A simple mobile detection script did the trick, allowing us to serve up a stripped down version of the full site, leaving the design elements in place and providing quick access to relevant information. |
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| On another hand, some mobile sites do more damage than good – try viewing Cleveland Institute of Art’s mobile site on your iPhone and you see this: |
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| Trippy, it’s my iPhone inside my iPhone! Probably not exactly what you want prospective students or parents dealing with. |
| It’s not enough to simply “have” a mobile site, it needs to be branded, well organized and allow users to get to the regular site if they choose to. And now we have the iPad to worry about. When you are up late at night wondering what kind of experience your Website visitors are having when viewing your site on their mobile devices, the first thing you need to do is look at your analytics. Once you know who your mobile audience is, and what devices they are using, then you are ready to make the next step in determining what kind of experience they will have. |
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Tracey, This was great!
What’s your (or Fastspot’s) limit on stripping down mobile sites. I run into a lot of clients who want a “mobile” site but it’s really hard to explain the changing face of the mobile experience — that you can be fantastic or plain depending on the platform you’re targeting.
Those stats for Woodberry Kitch are great because first and foremost you see iPhones, but what about the other devices? How did you make the decision to ignore them? And if you’re being conscious about them while not designing directly for them, how much do you strip away before you say “OK, that’s good for the mobile site and removing anything else will effectively lose our design”?
Hi Jason,
Thanks for reading, and commenting! We try to determine what kind of mobile users are most likely to be coming (unless of course the client has an unlimited budget and wants a variety of mobile sites), and then we build for that. In the case of the iPhone, sometimes the real site is fine, since you can zoom in on the browser. But with blackberries and other similar mobiles, you really do need something stripped down and basic. It’s really a case by case situation we work through with each client. The most valuable info comes from the analytics. In a perfect world, we have the bandwidth to craft a perfect experience for the ever growing wide variety of devices accessing a site!