Is your website mobile friendly?

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networkn

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Topic # 170930 31-Mar-2015 10:06

Freeparking sent this:

Studies have shown that the number of mobile users now exceeds the number of desktop users and on average people are spending two hours per day on their mobile device. To accommodate for this shift in user behaviour, Google have announced they will be changing their mobile search algorithm on 21st April 2015. This change will see only mobile optimised websites appear in the top results for searches made on mobile devices.

Was a little surprising they took such a strong stance of it.

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Reply # 1274061 31-Mar-2015 10:20

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While mobile friendly sites are great, we're seeing a massive influx of terrible "mobile friendly" sites that lack the same content as full sites, and another pretty common problem of links that don't redirect correctly once the site detects a mobile site.

Lots of web design companies are jumping on the "you need a mobile site" bandwagon, and doing a really bad job of it.

rendezvous

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Reply # 1274068 31-Mar-2015 10:29

Yes, mine is. I use Squarespace, so it automatically creates a mobile version.

www.danieltalbot.co.nz

radicall

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Reply # 1274074 31-Mar-2015 10:32

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If creating a separate mobile version is what your Web Developer is suggesting you would probably better of with a complete redesign and use a popular CMS with a responsive Theme. No need to keep two versions that way.

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kobiak

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Reply # 1274078 31-Mar-2015 10:35

yeah. responsive! not stand alone mobile/tablet version.

geekzone needs to keep up :) I hate live.geekzone page when browsing via my phone.

helping others at evgenyk.nz

TG09

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Reply # 1274079 31-Mar-2015 10:35

Google have emailed me to say I need to make mine mobile friendly.

I need to give it a redesign at some stage anyway.

clicknz

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Reply # 1274130 31-Mar-2015 11:21

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rendezvous: Yes, mine is. I use Squarespace, so it automatically creates a mobile version.

www.danieltalbot.co.nz

Thanks - will investigate Squarespace. You've got some lovely landscapes on your website!

Cheers,
Mike

Photographer/Videographer clickmedia.nz

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Reply # 1274810 31-Mar-2015 21:25

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full desktop sites are fine on my mobile - as long as they don't use those annoying dynamic drop-down menus that aren't sticky!

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richms

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Reply # 1274812 31-Mar-2015 21:38

Regs: full desktop sites are fine on my mobile - as long as they don't use those annoying dynamic drop-down menus that aren't sticky!

Or lightboxes that appear offscreen and you have to zoom all the way out and then cant read it or aim for the buttons and when you zoom in it moves elsewhere.

Richard rich.ms

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Reply # 1274822 31-Mar-2015 22:00

Wordpress responsive websites can be very slow I have found, as they need to load a lot of full websites code and css which they never use. The way some responsive websites do the menus can also be a problem.
What I do dislike about responsive websites, rather than just mobile ones, is that there is no option to view teh full website, which often has things the mobile one doesn't. The fact is that viewing a full website on a mobile website is fine, as you can easily zoom in and out of it. I do think Google dictating the types of websites you can view on a mobile device is just showing how much power they have.

Apples own website isn't responsive down to mobile phone screen sizes, and I don't think there is a mobile version either, at least not last time I tried viewing on my phone, so are google going to not allow apples website to appear in searches from a mobile?

richms

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Reply # 1274841 31-Mar-2015 22:24

I would rather have just seen an intersal warning and derating of activly mobile hostile websites, so ones that have things that will not work on mobile like offensive lightboxes, inability to zoom out to see images which are wider than the fixed viewport width and use of flash on the page. A warning that a site is mobile hostile and may not work would get the worst offenders sorted out. Rather than some of the totally crap responsive design that some "designers" spew out. Like "Hide all the navigation behind a menu" and "not show lots of the content even tho its downloaded" with CSS.

Richard rich.ms

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Reply # 1274844 31-Mar-2015 22:26

richms: I would rather have just seen an intersal warning and derating of activly mobile hostile websites, so ones that have things that will not work on mobile like offensive lightboxes, inability to zoom out to see images which are wider than the fixed viewport width and use of flash on the page. A warning that a site is mobile hostile and may not work would get the worst offenders sorted out. Rather than some of the totally crap responsive design that some "designers" spew out. Like "Hide all the navigation behind a menu" and "not show lots of the content even tho its downloaded" with CSS.

Most web designers these days I think use prebuilt templates which they adapt, which keeps costs down. Websites have got pretty complex, so to build a decent website template from scratch takes a lot of work, especially all the tesing that is needed across multiple browser and devices..

richms

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Reply # 1274845 31-Mar-2015 22:28

The problem is the misapplication of those templates, they hide essential call to actions like contact us and branch locations along with almost never used things.

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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Reply # 1274863 31-Mar-2015 22:50

On a side note, when did companies stop publishing their email addresses on their website, even as a non clickable spam protected link. I absolutely hate forms, you can't send attachments, and many tend to be broken, they either are never received, or you get a server error after submitting them.

richms

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Reply # 1274865 31-Mar-2015 22:53

The problem with email links is people will send from them with badly configured email hosts and complain when they get no reply. Via the website means that the site can confirm acceptance of it in a way that the person can see immediatly. When you email a company not all of them autoreply that it has been recieved etc.

Also people will send unsolicited attachments etc thru email.

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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Reply # 1274868 31-Mar-2015 22:59

richms: The problem with email links is people will send from them with badly configured email hosts and complain when they get no reply. Via the website means that the site can confirm acceptance of it in a way that the person can see immediatly. When you email a company not all of them autoreply that it has been recieved etc.

Also people will send unsolicited attachments etc thru email.

Depends on the website, because many of them are just using form to email scripts using phpmail and not over smtp. As many websites are hosted on cheap shared hosting which is poorly monitored, so they have hacked websites on the server sending out spam. So the IPs of these servers get blacklisted on RBLs which affects all users, so the emails end up in their junkmail folder or not being received at all.

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