MadeByPi goes Mobile! [Feb 10]
In recent months, we've been working on an increasing number of cross-platform web and mobile applications for clients - so we thought it was only fitting to apply our learning and development skills to our own website.
Optimized websites for mobile access is becoming an increasingly important factor to consider - the latest Mintel report estimates that 40.6% of people currently have internet access on their phone. And last month we found that almost 6% of the traffic to our website visited via mobile devices, as opposed to just over 1% this time last year.
Developed internally as an R&D project, being tasked with optimizing our website to cater to the wide range and variety of phones and Smartphones, each with differing screen sizes and capabilities, posed a nice challenge to our design and development team.
One of the most important factors we had to consider when designing our mobile website was to determine what information to include. We built the mobile site by hiding and showing relevant elements and content from our current site, which we only wanted to appear on the mobile/desktop versions through the stylesheet.
Paul Lemon, our Head of Software Development explains that ‘our new mobile site is based on our existing CMS managed site. We have designed a new layout specifically for the smaller touchscreens on mobile phones, making the site both quicker and easier to use on your smartphone. Content is driven from the same CMS as the standard version so it's easy to keep fresh and up to date whilst offering the most relevant content to the mobile surfer'.
The site uses a database to automatically detect the mobile phone being and its capabilities. The website is targeted at smartphones and has been tested on iPhone, Android, Nokia N95 and Blackberry platforms and we are continuing to test and refine this list. Mobile users can also still view the standard site if they wish to.
As all the latest industry figures outline, offering a more effective mobile-web experience of visiting your website will become increasingly important in the future - websites such as the BBC, Twitter and Yahoo already have personalized mobile sites. Drop us a line if you would like our advice/ consultancy on developing a working mobile version of your site or please feel free to let us know your thoughts and experience via our mobile site!
