Mobile Web sites // Options and Ideas

Building a mobile Web site requires thought and consideration

• Plethora of options makes it confusing to establish a clear way forward

• Is there a business case for it?

• What are the exact options available?

• How can I ensure my choice will be scalable and robust for the long term?

Mobile: A global trend

Over 15% of global traffic today is generated from mobile devices.

Understanding your current mobile audience and visitations are essential for establishing immediate and longer term ROI metrics and creating a relevant mobile centric user experience – use your current analytics as a starting point.

Mobile Web sites // Some thoughts

Customer satisfaction

A customised mobile user experience has been shown to be an effective way to retain the attention of your mobile audiences for longer and increase their likelihood of converting.

Understand how a mobile user experience can enable smarter interaction with your audiences on the move.

eShops

For eCommerce vendors, the ROI case is simple – mobile visits are already there, so providing them with a mobile centric user experience will increase conversions.

Providing your customers with a simple shopping and checkout process should be the starting point for enabling a fuller mobile experience between your brand and customers.

Build for the future

The mobile space is changing fast. Using techniques and solutions that are scalable will allow you to minimise redevelopment needs over time and attain greater ROI.

HTML 5 is now commonplace for creating Web sites which function identically on both desktop and mobile devices. Tools like Netbiscuits can ensure that the mobile ‘long tail’ (older devices) are also catered for.

So, what are the choices?

Device specific solution

A device specific solution allows you to deliver a tailored user experience per device.

The example shown here shows the full Caritas Web site and mobile friendly version which introduces a simpler user experience (the main menu only presents Learn, Act & Donate options).

Responsive solution

Responsive layouts use intelligent code to detect the screen size and repurpose the same content to the screen size.

The example shown here shows the same content being presented with a 3, 2 and 1 column grid layout depending on the device used to visit the site.

Mobile friendly design

Mobile friendly designs are created with mobile visitations in mind (e.g. large buttons), but use the same design across all devices.

The site shown here uses the same layout across all devices and has been build with HTML 5 (as opposed to Flash) to ensure interactive elements like the banner work on mobile.

Summary

Mobile friendly design Responsive layout Device specific

Pros •Cheap (design only) •Cost effective solution (uses same functionality across all devices)

•Delivers a user specific mobile solution

Cons •Does not offer a mobile centric user experience

•Limited mobile user experience

•Does not deliver mobile specific functionalities

•Can be costly

Good for… •Web sites with no specific mobile user needs

•Web sites with limited mobile user needs

•Web sites with specific mobile user needs

Bad for… •Web audiences with specific mobile needs

• Web audiences with specific mobile needs

• Web audiences with limited mobile user needs

Cost •Low •Medium •High

Next steps

Reactive has experience delivering a wide range of mobile solutions – why not give us a call to discuss your options.

Perspectives 2012

Our latest edition of Perspectives 2012 covers responsive layouts in great detail. Why not request a copy or download a copy from here: http://slidesha.re/I84TQI

Contact

Jason Ross – General Manager

M: 04 88012336 E: jasonr@reactive.com