I recently decided to catch up with technology and bought myself one of those fancy new smartphones everyone’s talking about. Now, one of the reasons why I didn’t until now is because you have to get a data plan. I asked myself, why would I need internet on my phone? I see people accessing the internet on their phones all the time and I didn’t want to be like that but the price tag was reasonable. I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Well, I got hooked, that’s what happened! Now I download apps, take quality photos and videos but my favorite capability is that I can surf the web anywhere without having to open my good ol’ laptop.
But wait! I realized, as I was surfing some of my favorite sites, that they looked totally different from their “desktop versions.” Some looked like an irregularly-sized version of the desktop site whereas others looked more like a mobile app.
After some research, I realized that websites either use responsive design while others opt to use a mobile site. So what are the differences and how does it affect the mobile online experience?
In my research, I found most sites I visited used the mobile webpage route. One difference is that you have to built the whole site for the mobile version. In order to do so, developers review content and consider SEO best practices alongside clients to determine what’s most relevant and cut the “fat” that an otherwise large desktop site might have. Mobile sites are also strictly for mobile phones as opposed to tablets because the tablet’s larger screen sizes and larger RAM don’t usually require the need for a lightweight mobile site.
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For responsive websites, most of the content of the desktop site is still readily available to the user, albeit in a more sleek and vertical approach. A responsive website adapts to the screen and although it might look different on every device, it still usually maintains the same content as a desktop site and keeps the branding consistent. From a developer’s viewpoint, it might be more difficult to tackle a responsive site because you keep the same content (and it might be a lot of content to change) but make it adapt to a specific device.
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So, is responsive web design better than mobile web design? Which one wins? The answer is both. A website depends on the content and it’s up to a client and an agency to select which one is better for the individual clients. Can’t decide? Let Agency Entourage help you! As a digital marketing agency, with a whole team of SEO, Design/Development and Interactive Producers, we can make your market grow. Check us out! (We have a mobile website, too!)
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