JULY 2013 ▲ DIGGER 13

If you’re considering designing a new website for your company — or even just evaluating how users experi-ence your current website — there are several factors worth your consideration.

Who will be viewing the website? What will users be looking for? What do you want their experience to be like?

In the last few years it’s become essential to also ask yourself, “On what type of device will my website be viewed?”

As a business owner, you know your website is an important tool for reaching your customers, and that using current technology helps your business stand out online. However, you can no longer count on customers sitting down at a desktop computer and viewing the full-size version of your website. Their behavior has changed.

You can now expect that many of your customers and potential customers will look up your website on the go, with a smartphone or tablet.

If you regularly use a tablet or smartphone, you’ve probably had the experience of browsing a website designed for the typical, large desktop browser window. When such websites

are scaled down to fit a tablet or smart-phone screen, the result is tiny links and text. Your user either needs phe-nomenal, pinpoint skill to tap the link you want (and no others), or they will end up zooming in so far they’re not even sure where they are on the page anymore.

For the user, this is a sure-fire recipe for frustration. Worse yet for you, the user ends up missing out on the intended experience that you and your web designer spent valuable time (and money) strategizing and crafting.

A better solutionIn the past, the most popular

solution to this conundrum was to

create two versions of your website — the main desktop version, and then a mobile version. (The latter would usually have a distinct URL of its own, such as m.website.com.)

While this was an acceptable inter-mediary solution, there are many short-comings that come with having two versions of your website. The biggest is that you have to design and develop two viewing experiences while main-taining one unifying look and feel.

Once the website is live, you face the time-consuming task of making any needed updates in two places instead of one. Additionally, having a mobile website doesn’t guarantee that it will read well on a tablet. In short, a mobile website no longer covers all your bases.

Fortunately, web developers have a new tool available to them: responsive design. Creating a responsive website means that it will actively adapt and resize to fit the environment in which it is being viewed. How does this work? It all begins in the design phase.

The process of creating a respon-sive website takes a little more time up front. First, the graphic designer will mock up how the website should look

The value of responsive web design

Casey Daline

PivotPoints

Responsive web design aims at crafting sites that provide an optimal viewing experience — easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning and scrolling — across a wide range of devices, from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones.

14 JULY 2013 ▲ DIGGER

in various environments. Then, the web developer codes the website so that as your browser window shrinks from large desktop computer down to mobile device, the website elements either adjust in size, or stack for easier viewing.

The time spent in this initial pro-cess — thinking through all viewing environments and possibilities — will pay off in the end with a website that has consistent functionality no matter how it is viewed. Additionally, you’ll save time in future website updates.

With responsive design, your web-site will have one unified look across mobile, tablet and desktop platforms. The website’s technology will detect what kind of device is being used and adjust automatically to render the page correctly. The result is a consistent look and feel across devices.

The user experience is much more similar on every platform. What’s more, you will save time as a company owner,

because you’ll only need to make future updates to one website, not two.

From a marketing perspective, you always want your company’s brand to have a consistent look and feel. This is true in print materials, and it’s also true on the Internet. You want users who visit your website on a phone, tablet or desktop computer to recognize your brand, know what to expect, and easily find what they are searching for.

So, when you’re ready to redesign or even just freshen up your website, make sure it’s responsive.

Casey Daline is a project manager at Pivot Group. Pivot focuses on provid-ing marketing, training, research, and creative services support. She can be reached at casey@askpivot.com or 503-358-5545.

▲ PIVOT POINTS

You can no longer count

on customers sitting down

at a desktop computer

and viewing the full-size

version of your website…

Many of your customers

— and potential customers

— will look up your

website on the go, with a

smartphone or tablet.