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Why Responsive is no longer a web marketing buzzword

January 27, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

 

Image of site on iphone in landscape mode

Make your users’ mobile experience your number one priority.

Unless you’re reading this post as an email you’re probably aware that my site has a new look and feel.

I’ve been meaning to make the change for some time but it was a comment from ex-student and current Facebook friend Rhys Moult that spurred me to action.

On a link to a blog post he asked when I was going to make the site responsive. He was telling me that he was reading my posts on his smartphone and the experience was crap. In other words, the page he was viewing scaled down so that the whole thing fitted into a tiny screen.

The problem with that is the text becomes so small that it’s difficult to read without either spreading the page with finger and thumb or turning the phone on its side so that the text grows in height as it spreads in width. Either of these two options are a pain in the you-know-where.

Based on this I tackled the task of the site redesign changing the theme of the site. (That’s the beauty of using WordPress – there are heaps of really cool premium themes to choose from without the need to shell out on a designer.)

There were two major contenders for the theme.

Before I tackled the task of choosing the theme I created a list of my must-haves for the site. I wanted the new look to be clean and smooth have and have an uncluttered feel. But most important of all I wanted it to be responsive.

In other words, I wanted the site to display something visually stunning on a big screen and then change shape as the screen size changed. On a 27′ iMac I wanted the site to have an open look with a sidebar on all pages except the landing page. On an iPhone I wanted the sidebar to disappear to below the main content.

And of course I wanted that responsive design to deliver my friend with text that was easy to read when viewed on a smartphone.

I started the hunt.

This site was previously built using a Pagelines theme. They’re pretty good. Revo by Aleksander Hansson was my first choice because it was bold and had these really cool paralax effects.

Then I found AgencyPro by Genesis. It, too, had a striking design, was built responsive out of the box and allowed some cool customisations. As I’d used Genesis before that’s the one that got the nod.

About 12 hours later my new look site was published.

What’s different?

If you’re reading this on your desktop pick up your smartphone and browse to the site. Tilt the phone on its side and watch the site change shape again. If you’ve got an iPad nearby give that a go in both landscape and portrait mode. Each will give you a slightly different experience.

Notice how the photos don’t get too small so that you can’t see them. On really big screens, like my iMac, the background picture ‘grows’ so that it doesn’t pixelate.

If you’re thinking this all sounds a bit of a self-indulgent brag, you’re right – to an extent. I am proud of how the site looks. But that’s where it ends.

The point of this story is that responsive design is here to stay. If you own a business and your site and your email marketing aren’t designed on responsive principles you’re leaving money on the table.

Why?

Because people today expect better. They don’t want to be forced to pinch and pleat and spread just to find out basic information about your products or services. They want that information now or they’ll go somewhere else.

The other point to this story, especially for real estate agents, is to not let your web designer tell you that you need a mobile site. The site that you’re looking at isn’t two sites. It’s one site that behaves differently depending on the device you’re using.

That takes a little bit of upskilling on the part of web developers.

A web development firm has designers and coders.

The designers can no longer just create a desktop version of your site design. They’ve now got to design it for different screen sizes and resolutions. That takes extra work and an understanding of the way the new web works.

The coders need to learn some new tricks and add to their coding vocab.

For example, I recently hired someone to code a responsive email.

“I want a responsive email template,” I said.

“Nope, can’t be done,” they said.

“Umm, yes it can,” I said.

“But we’ve tried and it doesn’t work,” they said.

“Try again,” I responded.

Guess what. They did it. Not perfectly but they did it. If I’d given up after their first rebuttal my email marketing would look like everyone else’s – crap on a smartphone.

For me, the future of online is responsive. Of course there are a few exceptions to this ‘rule’ but in the main if a web developer can’t/won’t/doesn’t know how to build responsive, I’ll go somewhere else.

The lessons? If you rely on your website to market yourself:

  1. Design for mobile first.
  2. Design for mobile second.
  3. Design for desktop last.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: responsive design, smartphone, web design

How a game the Eagles lost taught me to use my iPhone less

January 14, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Workers playing on their smartphones

Smartphones are useful but not if they get in the road of true connection. Image: Micah Maziar http://www.flickr.com/photos/mzwp/

In June of 2013 I watched the Eagles play the Bombers at Patterson Stadium. At the time the Bombers were embroiled in a drugs scandal.

The game was a cracker.

At half-time the Eagles led by just 3 points. By three quarter-time they’d manage to push that margin out to 17.

With Job Watson being jeered every time he went near the ball the Bombers had a lot to do. But it was clear they were far from beaten.

It was edge-of-the-seat stuff.

As you probably know, I like to observe. And through the course of this pulsating game I’d spotted a young kid sitting not far from me.

He was playing on his iPhone.

While the rest of the crowd booed and cheered and tried to will their team over the line he was hunched over his phone seemingly oblivious to the theatre that surrounded him.

Now I’m no stranger to technology but I felt a sense of sadness mixed with outrage.

I was sad that this young bloke was missing the spectacle of a titanic struggle and I was outraged that someone had paid good money for a ticket only to have the kid ignore the whole match.

Over the months since I’ve become more acutely aware of our apparent addiction to small screens.

And it’s not just young people.

It’s people of my age and older who are addicted to iPhone notifications but won’t do anything to stop them. It’s tourists who visit the Grand Canyon and see the whole thing through the screen of their smartphone camera. And it’s people who go out to dinner with their phones next to their plate, the whole time taking sneaky peaks to see if they’ve received a text or Facebook notification.

I see this addiction as robbing from our families and communities a sense of deep connectedness.

But there is a better way.

That better way is to make using technology a choice, not a reaction.

Along with a few other goals, I’ve made a decision to spend less time with my phone this year. Sure, I’ll still use it – probably more than most – but it will be on my terms.

I’ve already setup Do Not Disturb so that the phone isn’t buzzing and blinking during the night.

And I’ve stopped taking it to the toilet with me. Seriously, I never did that. It’s weird.

So what’s your take; do we use our smartphones and tablets too much?

Footnote: If you’ve read this far you deserve to know that the Eagles lost 13.13.91 to 15.8.98. It really was a sad night.

Filed Under: Daily blog, Life strategies Tagged With: choice, iPhone, phones, smartphone

About Peter

Speaker, trainer and coach. I write about living, loving and working better. Love a challenge. More...

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