This infographic from Monetate shows that because mobile Internet users and the amount of different screen sizes are increasing, online merchants must revamp their websites for these users.
To prove this point, just consider:
- Twenty percent of the online traffic to ecommerce sites comes from mobile devices.
- Sixty-seven percent of online shoppers are more likely to purchase from a website designed for mobile use.
Having just gone through the process of redesigning our blog, in part because of a growth of mobile users, we had to ask ourselves the same questions addressed in this infographic.
Is there a significant amount of mobile traffic coming to our site?
Using our analytics capabilities we noticed an increase in users coming from mobile devices. This told us it was time to address how our site functions in a mobile setting. The next decision we had to make was whether we wanted to build a responsive site or a separate mobile site.
Which content do we hide/display on a mobile screen?
As screen sizes shrink so does the room for displaying all the content found on a full site. We needed to decide on what the focus of our site should be for mobile users and design accordingly.
What are the rendering issues we need to consider?
Once we decided to build a mobile site, we had to make sure that our code rendered well on a plethora of screen sizes and legacy browsers. Our testing focused again on our analytics and finding those screen sizes and legacy browsers that bring in significant traffic.
Pros and cons of responsive design
Ultimately, we decided to build our new site using the principles of responsive design because of certain advantages it offered over a separate mobile site. However, responsive design isn’t necessarily right for every site and trade-offs must be considered:
- Pro – Responsive design enhances SEO by offering a single URL structure.
- Pro – It streamlines HTML and CSS codes making updates and maintenance easier.
- Con – A site built using responsive design loads all the files contained in your code even if the content is not displayed on a smaller screen.
- Con – No matter which route you go, designing a mobile site means sacrificing important content found on your full site.
