2 years ago, we did a survey looking at how people expected the use of mobile to access websites would change in the future, and the overwhelming response was that they believed mobile and the development of mobile websites would become more important as we moved forward. So, 2 years on, what is the reality now? A review of a number of our clients’ websites shows 2 interesting facts:
- Mobile usage has, in broad terms, doubled over the last 2 years
- If we consider web views from mobile phones, this is still relatively low (ranging from 5-19%)
There is no doubt, the trend is towards increased use of mobiles, even in the more conservative B2B markets where we focus, and although the majority of web views are still from desktops, the levels of mobile usage can not be ignored in the long term. The other thing that has changed is the introduction of responsive web design, and the idea that rather than designing separate sites for desktop and mobile, you design one site that responds to screen size and optimises the display for the screen size that it is being viewed on. Although this approach makes a lot of sense, it also adds a significant degree of complexity (and hence cost) to the website design process. Is this additional cost necessary? It should be considered in light of the stats as to who is viewing your website, and on what devices (all available form Google Analytics). Our current advice in this area: “Take a look at your stats, and make decisions based on the actual audience. Although responsive design is definitely the future, whether or not you need to invest in make your site responsive is totally dependent on how YOUR website is used. If you would like to talk to us about this in relation you your site, we are always happy to chat
