The last 2-3 years have seen an explosion in Internet ready hand held tablet devices such as the iPad and its successor iPad 2, the iPod touch, Smartphones such as iPhone, BlackBerry and also the Android powered devices which allows the user to access the Internet on demand, on the go and anywhere. As per a recent study by Morgan Stanley, mobile Internet usage will surpass desktop and laptop usage of Internet by 2015. Already about 45% of Internet users in the US use mobile internet to access books, news, buy tickets online, check their flight status, check-in for flights and order a pizza. With cheaper handsets and faster Internet connections, mobile Internet usage will continue to grow at an exponential rate.
That brings us to the most relevant of questions, how much are you into mobile web design? How ready is your website in terms of mobile accessibility? A well designed website which looks and works perfectly well on a normal desktop may not be a suitable mobile web design which can be accessed on a Smartphone for example.
A mobile web design needs to consider several factors when being built. A mobile browser is smaller and it supports fewer amounts of JavaScript and AJAX. With earlier Smartphones it is difficult to access complicated flash programming, but for the advanced Android based tablets like the Samsung 10.1 and the Motorola Xoom, flash support is built in. Apple products however, at the time of writing this post do not support Flash. You also have to consider that the your website will show up differently on the browsers of different mobile devices. They are not of the same size.
With increasing penetration of 4G however, users in countries such as Western Europe, Japan and USA have the ability to access graphic heavy content, but users in Brazil, Russia, and India may find the going still not easy with slow 3G penetration. So when designing your website for mobile, you need to consider speed, browser computability and also JavaScript support among other things.
Dont fret if you dont have access to all the major Smartphones to test your website for its readiness. There are several websites which offer the services of compatibility testing for mobile web design which are available for free or some at a small fee.
Free compatibility sites:
mobiReady - http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN
Mobile Emulator - http://www.mobilephoneemulator.com/
.......................................
WB Consulting is a Web Design company servicing the Collin County area specializing in Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, Mobile Web Design, Marketing, Social Marketing and Video Production. Want to know more about WB Consulting, visit our web site at www.webservicesdfw.com or contact us today at 214-449-0488.
Comments(0)