Code Computerlove shares its thoughts on making websites mobile – basic considerations and why the time mobile for a mobile strategy has never been so important.
The days of building websites targeted solely for desktop or laptop environments are over. Users can and will access your website from a variety of internet enabled devices, of which, a large percentage will be mobile devices built by various manufacturers and lacking consistency in both hardware and software capabilities.
Accessing the web from mobile devices is far from new. However, the popularity of smart phones like the iPhone and cheaper data packages from network providers has driven a sharp rise in mobile web usage which is not just reserved for the latest and greatest smart phones.
As website owners, mobile devices also offer some fantastic features typically not available on the desktop. Functionality such as clicking a hyperlink in your website to call your phone number or adding your contact details to an address book exist. And with more advanced devices, a mobile website can provide more targeted, location aware content for your visitors.
It is vital, with the growing importance of mobile devices and with the diversity of access it brings, that website owners think smarter and broader about how they allow visitors to engage with their site; and making your website mobile isn’t as complicated as you think.
Ste Brennan, Innovation Technologist at Code, outlines key considerations in making websites mobile:
Have a clear policy and strategy for making your website as accessible to as many internet enabled devices as possible.
A mobile site is JUST a website. You can utilise your existing XHTML/CSS skills and, it can run on your existing technology stack served by your existing web server and utilise your existing web development skills. The days of supporting WAP 1.0 and WML are over.
Due to the sheer diversity of mobile devices out there, and the inconsistent technologies needed to support them, you can’t guarantee that your site will work the same across all devices – however, if you support at the lowest level and then try to build device profiles that cover off the most popular devices you will have gone a long way to cater for most handsets.
At Code Computerlove, we introduced the concept of “Device Profiles” to group handsets. Grouping is arbitrary and may differ per project – sometimes by phone features, sometimes by vendor. Device profiles play an important part in both the design and build process as well as testing a QA. These are not set in stone – technologies change so a site’s device profile policy needs to be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
By examining web request header information, we can use a server-side “device capability file” to determine whether a web page request is coming from a mobile web browser or not and subsequently which device profile it falls in to.
Testing your website on the actual physical devices is the best way to evaluate how well your mobile site works. However, we also use a number of browser plugins and software simulators to help in our testing and QA.
In an ideal world, build your website to work for desktops as well as mobiles – but if you have to retro-fit mobile onto an existing desktop site it may be easier to run two separate sites, as we’ve done with the Code Computerlove site using m.codecomputerlove.com for the mobile site and www. for the desktop version
But why bother? Code’s Managing Director, Andrew Davenport adds: “We are entering the age of mobile maturity in terms of clients needing to plan mobile strategies as part of their broader digital strategies. 88% of UK adults own a mobile phone, and mobile technology just got even smarter with the wonderful iPad and with analysts predicting a 500%+ growth in the mobile market within the next five years, ensuring a brand is visible from all mobile platforms is going to be pretty important for most clients. The time for mobile is now.
“While few brands have yet to exploit the mobile medium to maximum effect, we’d argue that entry must be dictated by consumer insight. Too many times clients jump into the newest digital space to tick the right boxes (check out most brands initial Facebook pages or Twitter activity). Mobile platform understanding offers clients a real business opportunity to rework their relationship with consumers whether it’s transactional, utility or relationship based. Consumers are adopting and adapting to the technology. The technology is getting better and the digital channel is expanding. Which client can afford not to be in it?
“The iPad certainly fits into that bracket for me, but with only a few million of them sold worldwide, unless your target audience is well-off, tech-hungry, Apple enthusiasts, I believe companies should be putting their mobile web strategy first, before mobile apps (iPhone, iPad or Android), targeting the largest possible audience and potential customers, whilst considering more contextual, targeted apps based upon understanding how the consumer behaves with these devices and their opportunities.
“So before considering mobile apps, brands need to nail the mobile web. Mobile web is available for millions of handsets, while mobile apps just a small portion of these.
“Moving forward, mobile services will be increasingly important to consumer product brands and service companies looking to interact with their consumers in a relevant and more personal way. The benefits will undoubtedly increase revenues, lower costs and increase satisfaction and loyalty. To maximise these benefits, it’s important that mobile solutions are as inclusive as possible, and support a large number of platforms.”