“We must ensure the experience on each device is built specifically to accommodate the user; our consumer” sites John Lim, Co-Founder & CEO of Life in Mobile. “Consumer behavior is inherently different when using a mobile phone compared to a desktop computer”, Lim adds. Consumers are now interacting digitally at the same time as they are interacting in the real world. Location based searches (LBS), mobile ad revenue and mobile’s share of online sales are all dramatically increasing year over year and quarter to quarter. All from their mobile device a consumer can find the store nearest them, view the product in real life, find a deal and purchase it from their mobile device at a lower cost than what it’s selling for at the retail location in which they are currently standing. Do you think this consumer wants the same content as on their desktop just in a different size?
According to John Packes, Co-founder & Head of Innovation at Life in Mobile, “Responsive Design is great for certain applications, such as simple static websites, basic administrative management panels and blogs. However, being a mobile company, we always take a mobile-first approach. We aim to create an experience that meet the needs of the consumer and satisfies the goals of our client, which in general is to get the consumer to the piece of information and/or the specific product or service he/she is looking for as quickly and efficiently as possible, and create the highest conversion opportunity for our client. Inserting code that delivers resized content across devices oftentimes is a cop-out. Just because the same information displays on all devices, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re delivering effective experiences across devices.”
Google, while recommending a Responsive Design configuration, does “appreciate that for many situations it may not be possible or appropriate to use Responsive Web Design” as they go on to note in their Recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites Blog.
