mobile | Kenneth Ronkowitz

The increase and perhaps dominance of mobile devices has caused many changes in web design. Of course, every website should work well on phones, tablets and desktop devices.

One of the options to be considered is if the site should be a responsive or adaptive design.

The adaptive design adapts to different screen sizes. Designers must create layouts for the most common screen sizes in order for this to work. The adaptations of the design are limited to what the designer created for the website.

Responsive design style automatically resizes its layout depending on device size and environment. Only one design is needed, but coding must be hierarchical so that modules stack in the right order on smaller screens. Regardless of the device type, the design fits the screen.

It sounds like responsive design is the way to go, but despite its limitations, adaptive design has been a popular choice for web design over the years. Adaptive design is useful if you’re looking to add a mobile version of your website without redesigning all of your existing work. If you have a website and don’t have the time or budget to create a new, responsive one, adaptive design is a useful tool for retrofitting your existing site.

Another consideration is whether or not your mobile visitors have significantly different goals than your desktop visitors. If there are big differences, then it might make sense to choose adaptive design. An example is a website for a doctor’s office which might offer a full suite of capabilities on its desktop site, but offer easier, limited access to appointments and directions on an adaptive, mobile version. Then again, adaptive design means you need layouts of all size screens. Most designers would design for the most common screen sizes.

Retrofitting a website or adapting it for mobile is a good reason to go adaptive.

If you are starting from scratch, you’ll want to go responsive. More and more platforms, like WordPress and Squarespace, use responsive design templates. They only require one layout, so there’s no need for additional coding and design like there is for adaptive web design. Updating and maintaining your website is easier because there is only one layout to edit.
Responsive design also (usually) has a better UX because there is more consistency when viewing your website.

Are there any cons to using responsive? From a designer’s point of view, it lacks flexibility because having only one layout means you’re limited in terms of customization for different devices and screen sizes. Some people think these designs have slower load times because it requires additional code.

Conclusions? Adaptive design can be a good choice if you don’t have time to redesign your entire website or if you’re looking to simply add a mobile-friendly version. Responsive design is the modern approach to web development and if you’re creating a new website or completely overhauling your current one, it might be time to invest in responsive design.

SOURCE: business2community.com

update

I recently told two potential clients that I didn’t think they needed a new website. Sounds like I am not a very good businessman.

But they didn’t need a new site. Their existing site worked for them, even though it was a few years old. They had been adding minor updates but nothing else changed. Both sites were built using a WYSIWYG site designs (Squarespace and GoDaddy) which make it pretty easy to update, but neither owner was comfortable in doing anything more involved with the sites other than minor updates without some help. One had forgotten how to access the editing tools.

Web designers and website owners learn pretty quickly that site maintenance ultimately will involve more time and work (and cost) than site creation.

What I ended up doing for them consisted of some smaller but important updates and maintenance. Here are 6 possibilities for you to consider:

Make content changes. People don’t return to your site if it never changes. That’s what makes blogs or news updates on a site bring people back.
A site audit of security, performance and usability can reveal some changes to be made.
How does your site work on phones and tablets?
Does the site have the latest versions of the software, such as plugins? There may be new themes that can give your site a fresh and significantly different look for little time or cost.
Is it worth moving the site to a new hosting account that offers better pricing or more flexibility? can that be done with minimal work by me?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is important but an area that has a lot of scam offers to get your site “to the top of search results.” Simple use of keywords and other page code can help, along with some advice about how to move up the results.
Related to SEO is getting the word out via newsletters, mailing lists and social media. Are you using those things?