Mobile Friendly Design vs. Mobile Design vs. Responsive Design
In our 1st blog of this series we discussed what is responsive web design was. In this blog we are going to discuss the different design options when it comes 
to your mobile device or tablet.
There are 3 main options when it comes to the design; they are mobile friendly websites, mobile websites and responsive web design Websites. We’ll start with Mobile Friendly and work our way towards Responsive Design.
Mobile Friendly Design
What is mobile friendly design? It is your desktop website that also works on a smartphone or tablet, automatically fitting the screen you are viewing it on. If you take a look at this website on your mobile you’ll see what I mean. We avoid using Flash in order to make all of our websites mobile friendly. The functionality of our mobile friendly sites are the same as it would be on your desktop only you can zoom in or just tap on a link to go to the next page. All of our websites are automatically mobile friendly as standard.
Mobile Design
mobile design is a page or design of a website that is specifically designed for a mobile device or tablet. A mobile designed website is actually a separate website that automatically recognises the device it is accessed from and loads the site differently. Generally your site will have a different URL e.g. m.yoursite.com or www.yoursite.com/mobile or www.yoursite.mobi. With a mobile design you only have specific content available and can revert to the full mobile friendly website should you require access to all your content. Have a look at www.advancepitstop.com on your mobile to see what I am talking about.
Responsive Design
As we discussed in our first blog what is responsive web design is the next step in web design for smartphones and tablets. It is the next step up from mobile design! Responsive web design takes your whole website and automatically resizes the content to match your device’s screen size; you do not lose any content. It is not a separate site like a mobile website, it is your actual website shown responsively. There is no specific domain for your responsive design it will appear as www.yoursite.com as normal.
Conclusion
It all comes down to your business’s requirements as well having a look at how people are currently accessing your website. Please feel free to contact Webtrade on 01 2990655 or email us on sales@webtrade.ie; we’ll can talk to you about your website and your smartphone requirements.