At one time, the only platform for websites was computers, namely notebook and desktop computers. Since they used the same browsers to view websites, we were mainly concerned with browser compatibility and ensuring all our sites could be viewed with even the smallest monitors.
While we still have those issues, we must be concerned with mobile devices—web-enabled phones and tablet computers.
These devices do a decent job of rendering a standards-compliant website, but the result, especially for a mobile phone, is a website that is very hard to read without zooming in. Imagine taking a website designed for a 25” screen and then viewing it on a two-inch screen.
Two recent projects at Kona Impact demonstrate some of the needs and issues. Jackie Rey’s, a popular local restaurant, and Hualalai Urgent Care, a local medical clinic, are two local businesses likely to have a lot of mobile viewers. We have made a mobile website for both lately.
The Hualalai Urgent Care mobile site applies a framework that determines the viewers’ device and then serves up special content and formatting of that content tailored to that device. This was a retrofit of a website we made several years ago.
The Jackie Rey’s mobile site, was, in many ways, easier, because we were able to develop the website from the ground up recently. That said, it’s not an easy or quick task.
If you are looking for a website and a mobile version of the website, give us a call at 329-6077. While we don’t recommend an optimized mobile site for all of our clients, if you envision a significant part of your site’s visitors view your site on your phone, it is probably worthwhile. We’re happy to talk about these issues—both pro and con—in an honest and direct way with you.