Cell phones have come a long way, from being the size of bricks and only able to make calls, to now virtually being hand held PCs (or Macs). Calls aren’t the primary reason to use a cell phone, according to the New York Times, “for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cell phone calls.”
Society demands immediate access online (which the cell phone instantly provides) so, isn’t it important to make sure that your site is mobile friendly?
You may argue that with the rise of smart phones, you can just build an app for your mobile users. An app is expensive to build and as a recent Nielson Company study shows smart phones only enjoy 29.7% of the market share, so there goes the app solution. Generally mobile sites are cheaper to build and are less likely to have bugs.
If I look at my own experience with the Facebook app for iPhone, it doesn’t always allow me to successfully upload pictures or videos, it is definitely easier to use their mobi site. Mobi sites such as Wikipedia have simply altered their site’s style and sites with flash, simply remove it.
For those of you who aren’t programmers there are various options to help you convert your site. There is Mobify which adapts your site for cell phones as well as iPads. They have clients such as Visa and the Gap. For those that love DIY here are 6 things to keep in mind when you adapt your site:
- Layout
- Content
- Coding
- Images
- Page Size
- Page Links
After adapting your site don’t forget to test it on a variety of cell phones.
A great user experience will result in returning visitors. So the moral of the story in today’s world is to make sure that your site is cell phone friendly, ensuring that it’s only a pocket or purse away. . .
Read more posts by Neerali Gajjar
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Nice work throwing in some Mac love in there Neerali!
Hahaha ya getting of sick of the PCs are better. . . People forget Windows/Mac are operating systems and PC refers to personal computer which could be either operating systems. . . Us Mac people have to stick together!
After I saw the post on TweetDeck on my iPhone, which led me to this article, knowing the motto of Heavy Chef, I was expecting the site to now serve up a newly added mobile version. But alas, I had to resize with the browser to read the article.
Come on guys, here’s a challenge to once again practice what you preach, and make a mobile version of Heavy Chef
Great point Mark – thanks for the comment. This is definitely in the pipeline for 2011 and one of the goals of the next month is to collate all the research on the topic into a working plan for a kickass HC mobisite. That said, we may go simple and use a WordPress plug-in, but we want to look at all the options. Watch this space.
Thanks be to WordPress!