With the advent of smartphones, the i-pad and constant new technologies, the demands for appropriate website interfaces has developed beyond the standard requirements. Visitors are now expecting to be able to interface a website with the same level of convenience as using a standard laptop or home PC.
The ever increasing number of screen sizes and constant improvements in broadband has paved the way for ‘all in one and on the go’ internet browsing. More and more people are buying via i-phones and tablets as consumer habits continue to evolve. The market is growing at such a pace, failing to respond can have consequences for customer satisfaction and hence turnover.
My Workwear, operating in the competitive field of embroidery and work clothing have seen the number of visitors via mobile devices grow substantially over the last two years. April saw visits via mobile devices reach 28.5% on the myworkwear.co.uk site, despite this figure including tablet devices, the market has been highly significant.
To respond to this shift in consumer patterns My Workwear have launched one of the first responsive design sites within their market sector. When deciding on how to address the mobile revolution webmasters are faced with two possible solutions, either build a mobile site or go for the ‘responsive design’ approach. Managing Director James Worthington explained the decision; ‘With the change in visitor demographics we had to find a new platform for future developments and build on our commitment to provide market leading customer satisfaction’.
The responsive design approach has many advantages over a conventional mobile only design and this played a major part in the Companies decision. Responsive websites have the advantage of adapting to any screen size or platform and hence work excellently on tablet devices. With the wealth of choice in mobiles and ever changing customer viewing platforms a solution that can adapt to any format is essential. Simply developing a solution to cater for the ‘here and now’ of web development is no longer enough.
Responsive design works by adapting the imagery and presentation to suit the dimensions of the users device. Presentation is automatically prioritized according to the importance of each part of the website with regard to customer requirements. A small mobile screen will show just basics such as the search bar and navigation menu, building up to an all singing and dancing home PC adaptation. This hierarchy system works excellently for customer viewing via all types of devices in between such as the i-pad.
A real effort has been made to make the new My Workwear website both customer friendly and have a fresh, friendly feel. As well as now featuring responsive design, the new site also also undergone a cosmetic makeover. Continued growth for the Shropshire based embroidery specialist has allowed further investment in the look of the site to be developed. ‘Not only do we now have a smartphone friendly design, but the new graphics and layout allow us to offer an excellent visitor experience’ Mr Worthington added.
The new website was launched on May 2nd and to road test the approach click here via mobile, tablet, PC or any format you now wish.
