Building a mobile site - Looking for info

[pcproblems]

Hi People

My website looks very poor when viewed on a smart phone so I'm toying with the idea of building one that's optimised for phones. My site is a bog standard static one and i have absolutely no idea what the required spec would be for a looks ok on a mobile.

Are there any websites that I should be looking at for info.

How do I divert a smart phone user to the mobile friendly one ?

Any info gratefully received.. Have a great weekend

 

[Faevilangel]

You want to look into recoding the site and doing it in a responsive theme. Basically the site will be optimised for all devices and will work across all browsers.

Have a look at this article

 

[pcproblems]

That's a very interesting article, many thanks

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Yeah, you might be best off simply redesigning your current site using a responsive design which will then work on a range of devices (smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, PCs etc.).

The trend is for mobile devices to get larger screens, higher resolutions and more power, so you'll probably find if you design a mobile only site now, it may well look dated quickly.

It's also worth making sure you have fast web hosting, and optimise your site using techniques such as sprites: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites/
Speed is important for the web, search engine performance, user experience, and so forth, but especially so for mobile where connections can be slow and devices less capable at rendering.

I hope that helps.

 

[Baz Watkins]

2 options I can see.

GoMobi or something similar which gives you a skinny mobile website for like £50. Its incredibly basic but it will do as a first connect point for a visitor.

Secondly as said before, go for a new website which has a responsive template layout which then adjusts to the browser size of the reader.

As for CMS's I think Wordpress is viable and Joomla 3.0 definatelly will be...when it comes out in September.

 

[pcproblems]

Lots of useful information coming my way, thank you so much, i have lots of reading to do

 

[josegrad]

Hi, I imagine you are talking about the site you have in your signature?

If that is that the site you should be ok using CSS media queries pretty much. That site is not complex and a bit of good CSS will do wonders. Media queries and responsive design are your friends.

Don't pay for any products to "mobilize" that site because it is not worth for that case.

In case it is a different site maybe you can put the url somehow so we can check it out.

Cheers.

 

[Chris Fickling Design]

For me there is no better approach to responsive website design than this:

http://foundation.zurb.com/

I've used it in production environments and it is superb.

 

[josegrad]

Looks nice. And with a ruby gem, thanks.

 

[pcproblems]

yes it is the one in my sig

Lots more reading to do.. Going to be a busy weekend

 

[pcproblems]

Didn't expect to get a phone call from someone offering their services but thanks anyway

 

[MancunianCreative]

I was going to say it has to be responsive.

But I have been beaten to it.

I would certainly say it needs an overhaul in the design aspect though.

I'm sure you've been bombarded by offers today, but please feel free to take a look at our site, it's responsive too, so check it out on your phone, ipad or what-have-you.

Regards

Stephen

 

[Mike Bannar]

Hey, that great to hear that you care for your users. my suggestions are that focus more on the easy interface, catchy buttons and last give your consumers what they want in the sense that its easy for them to see what they want to see !

best of luck !!

regards

 

[Vennweb]

As title: worked fine on my blackberry

 

[pcproblems]

Yes, it certainly does need an overhaul.... I'll do some research over the weekend but may even migrate to WP as I know how to do that.

 

[pcproblems]

As title: worked fine on my blackberry

Thank You very much

 

[cmcp]

Two most important things to watch when building responsive: page weight and http requests. Don't follow the WP mantra of adding a plugin as required. It'll add massive page weight and extra HTTP requests.

Remember to consider mobile first as an approach when building your media queries. Google "mobile first" or "luke w".

 

[josegrad]

I was gonna mention that, if you move to WP don't mess with plugins but select a responsive theme right from the beginning. It has to adapt the content as you resize your window for example.

Check these, there are some free http : / / www . tripwiremagazine . com / 2012 / 04 / responsive - wordpress - themes . html

Remove the spaces from the url of course

 

[pranay]

The easiest way to build your mobile Website is to modify your existing Internet site to make it compatible for mobile handsets. If you decide to do so, expect that there will be big changes in terms of layout, design and construction.

 

[cromiem]

Wordpress is a good easy choice there is a free Wordpress plugin called wptouch that makes any wp site mobile friendly.

Or you can have a theme in Wordpress for regular users and another theme for mobile users using another free plugin called mobile theme pack (I think or similar).

All very easy with Wordpress.

 

[totalweb]

It depends of course upon the site and the underlying CMS, but making a website responsive isn't necessarily such a headache. Typically a webpage will consist of several columns with all but one being ancillary to the main content. Making a site responsive need be no more complicated than switching these additional columns off. Of course there is no limit to what may be achieved, but in principal this needn't be over complicated.

We use our own in-house cms, so we don't run up against the issues which WP people seem to be mentioning. No great amount of code, no great overhead, no module or theme compatibility issues - just plug in half a dozen lines of additional CSS and away it goes.

I run two design businesses, one for high end global companies and the other for entry level startups:

If you google Baptist Connexion you'll see an example of what I'm talking about.

 

[pcproblems]

If you google Baptist Connexion you'll see an example of what I'm talking about.

I've had a look and it's a lovely site, I'll look morw closely when i get time.

I also googled
tendentious-parliamentary

 

[Vennweb]

Similar but with bits missing like side columns. Looks like it just stacks it up to fit in my phone window? (to totalweb: copyright is missing on phone - might want to sort that).

Are a lot of people browsing with devices that cannot do the std scroll and zoom? I usually select normal site format for most stuff on my BB.

www.1thess5v17.co.uk is all graphics but works fine on my phone.

 

[totalweb]

pcproblems

Glad you like it, yes the tendentious-parliamentary is part of my honeypot for spambots, email harvesters etc.

For those not aware of project honeypot, it's worth a google. Saved me putting captcha's or logic questions on the contact forms.

vennweb

Good spot I'll add an amendment into the cms later today, thanks.

The debate of whether smart phone users should see full content or not is a fair one to raise. My personal feeling is that scrolling and zooming poses no great challenge. But market dictates, and certainly our clients feel that the simplicity and more "app like" feel of a responsive site, brings a value.

A well designed web page will have only the one point of focus, one topic and the rest may be dropped without impacting upon user experience. Do I use responsive design for my sales sites (totalwebsite and ifour)? No. So I'm with you vennweb on this. But horses for courses. If your business is an online magazine, there are benefits to a reduced format for mobile which is easily readable on the move.

Responsive design is certainly not something I would include in a website unless requested, because there is a compromise in content taking place.

 

[Vennweb]

My personal feeling is that scrolling and zooming poses no great challenge. But market dictates, and certainly our clients feel that the simplicity and more "app like" feel of a responsive site, brings a value.

A well designed web page will have only the one point of focus, one topic and the rest may be dropped without impacting upon user experience. Do I use responsive design for my sales sites (totalwebsite and ifour)? No. So I'm with you vennweb on this. .

The customer allways winns! - I just thought that the subscription offers on the front page (desktop) got lost online. You could go for a semmi responsive design and check for screen size via JS then add a further button "prices" or somthing if someone is on a mobile device. You could potentially give them the option then too, (although I think this would need a complete rework of the site.)

If you're not a JS geek I'm happy to put an example together for you just PM me.

 

[365cloudit]

Hi,

Joomla websites are the key,

subscribe to a template website such as Yootheme and they templates have the mobile version inbuilt

the sites can be adapted and modified however you want with virtually any type of customisation

Sites like Virgin, vodafone are Joomla based websites

Great looking websites, great templates out there great results

 

[MancunianCreative]

Hi,

Joomla websites are the key,

subscribe to a template website such as Yootheme and they templates have the mobile version inbuilt

the sites can be adapted and modified however you want with virtually any type of customisation

Sites like Virgin, vodafone are Joomla based websites

Great looking websites, great templates out there great results

How bad are you sharking Joomla?

 

[365cloudit]

Simply a fact that lots of 'web designers' ignore

 

[MancunianCreative]

Simply a fact that lots of 'web designers' ignore

What fact? That your sharking Joomla like your on commission?

 

[365cloudit]

I joined this forum to simply provide good advise, and if i feel joomla fits the bill then its good advise,
but just to balance it out and as you use Wordpress for your own website, wordpress is a good alternative and good template websites will offer a mobile version within the template

 

[MancunianCreative]

I do. But I used Joomla for the one before it. I've used dozens of CMS's. But you are really going for it on Joomla.

 

[Chris Fickling Design]

Thread seems to have gone a bit off topic but what I would say is that no matter what your Content Management System is, it should be flexible enough to easily fit around a responsive website design system and vice versa - I believe that is the key. If you have to rely on templates that only work within a certain CMS then you're taking the wrong route in my opinion.

 

[Schroder]

Freely download the file from cssgrid.net

It says ...
The 1140 grid fits perfectly into a 1280 monitor. On smaller monitors it becomes fluid and adapts to the width of the browser.

Beyond a certain point it uses media queries to serve up a mobile version, which essentially stacks all the columns on top of each other so the flow of information still makes sense.

/end

 

[cmcp]

I'd be very wary of using Wordpress if you're taking a responsive approach. WP fills the site up with useless http requests, it's very (unnecessarily) heavy.

Responsive design is certainly not something I would include in a website unless requested, because there is a compromise in content taking place.

No compromise in content required with responsive. It's about optimised assets, fluid dimensions and media queries.

Content should always be mobile first.

 

[john.lee]

Hi,

If you can change the hosting provider you might want to look at Heart Internet. I think they provide a tool which will make your site look good on mobiles.

There is a sale line number on Heart Internet website so the sale person can give you more details.

Thanks


John

 

[josegrad]

Responsive design is certainly not something I would include in a website unless requested, because there is a compromise in content taking place.

Sorry but I find that observation disturbing. With more and more access coming from mobile anyone that starts a new site should make a responsive site. Or regret later.

For this case we discuss here the technology, CMS selection (if any), or scope should be based on the technical capabilities of the person in question. Do you now PHP, HTML/CSS, javascript, what type of site, etc.