Mobile Website Services

Mobile Websites are on The Rise

As the number of people browsing the Web from a mobile device continues to grow, and
browser platforms such as iOS and Android offer an experience similar to that of our
desktop browsers, you may be wondering,"What are my website's options for mobile
support?"

Well, it all depends upon your business, your budget, and your user's needs. There are
essentially three options to choose from, each with its own pros and cons:

Mobile-Detecting Websites

At Thermal Creative, we program all of our websites to work on mobile devices, but if you
know your users need certain features to be especially mobile-friendly -- for example, a
search or navigation that works more effectively with fingertip navigation -- an option
would be programming the website to use an "adaptive layout." These mobile detecting
websites are able to render layouts that “fit” the variances in mobile device displays; for
example, the website may render one way on a desktop computer’s browser, but another
way on an iPad, and another way on an Android phone. A good example of this is the
website for the typographic magazine, 8 Faces.

What’s great about this option is that it doesn't require developing a dedicated mobile
website (see below), but it’s still an expansion on a standard website and can be very
powerful for a variety of businesses that have many mobile users.

Sound right for your business? Contact us to learn more.

Dedicated Mobile Websites

If you're like us, you've experienced many a dedicated mobile website. Usually, the URLs for
these sites are along the lines of "mobile.url.com" or "m.url.com" and deliver a very different
experience than the "full version" -- a good example is one we developed ourselves,
Fay Ranches' website. These sites display only the most important information and features
-- from a mobile users' perspective -- in a way that is easy to navigate by fingertip. These
sites are complete additional websites that can deliver content from the same source as your
regular website; but, they require separate development and can be relatively expensive to
build and maintain.

With that being said, they can dramatically improve mobile performance and make
usability a breeze, thus increasing user interaction and conversions when your website’s
visitors are using a mobile device.

If this sounds like what you need, and you’d like to learn more, give us a shout.

Mobile Applications

Another option is to develop a dedicated application (commonly referred to as an "app"),
which is a completely custom experience that doesn’t need to behave like a website at all.
This platform allows you to refine experiences for presentations, educational materials,
games, data tools, or just completely reinvent your website's content display. You’re no
longer confined to the abilities of the mobile device's little web browser.

These are actual applications that need to be downloaded from an "app store," such as iTunes
or the Android Market, in order to be used; and, they live permanently on the mobile device
without the need for constant online access, depending upon the user's device functionality.

Since apps are developed for each platform individually (i.e. iOS, Android, Windows Mobile),
this option can be a relatively substantial investment  once you've developed tested and
launched for every platform; and, you’ll need to be prepared to continually update your
software as operating systems evolve as well. With that being said, if you need an optimized
experience, this may be something you should consider.

Contact us to discuss your options.