Final Online discussion with Ben Mahshie
Almost every business wants a mobile version of their website. With all sorts of devices, such as BlackBerry, iPhone, Pad, Netbook, Kindle, with different sizes and displays it becomes very difficult and expensive to create a version for each. As we continue into the future the pool of devices grows.
When will the madness stop? It won’t, of course.
In the field of website design and development, we’re quickly getting to the point of being unable to keep up with the endless devices and displays. Although it would be possible, creating a website that is only accessable to Apple iPhone, or iPad users it would alienate up to 46% of potential customers or clients. Giving up 46% of a companies potential sales market to reach only 54% of a market does not make sense. Should we suffer the lose of 46% of visitors from one device, for the benefit of gaining visitors from another? Or is there another option?
Responsive website design is an approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grid layouts, images, and coding practices. As the user switches from their laptop to an iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate the new display. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market.
But responsive website design is not only about adjustable screen resolutions and automatically resizable images, but rather about a whole new way of thinking about design.
“That is so 2014…”
At Local Website Design Inc. we are constantly trying to look ahead and push ourselves to deliver the next big thing or the newest concept of development techniques to provide to our clients.
We strive to not rest on our laurels and to challenge our developers, designers and all staff to be as forward thinking as possible. In doing this we are always proactively modifying and staying current, if not ahead of the ever changing path of the internet.
That being said we are now looking past responsive websites, as these are now part of our everyday recommendations for developed websites, towards what we are calling reactive websites.
Reactive websites are quite simply websites that act upon user mouse movements, keyboard button presses, and client interactions to help position your marketing messages, products, services, and basically the reason that you are putting your website online in the first place.
Using these techniques to form a new website will allow you to better push a user down a certain path, instead of relying on them to go to the right pages at the right time.
These new sites direct users down a path of which you would like them to take, not one in which you hope that they will take. We use the latest development techniques, code sets, and marketing strategies to ensure that the user is engaged in your site and the message is delivered. We are now able to provide simple or elaborate movement which is optimized for all current browsers and devices. Which even without a click of a mouse puts a compelling experience in front of them and literally forces them to take notice, and even be enthralled with what they are seeing because there isn’t anything quite like it being used this way online to date.
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