Reader Forum: Your mobile website is probably broken and you don’t even know it

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.

It is impossible to guess what mobile device, operating system version, user context or accessibility requirements your customers will be viewing your website on before it happens. But with a mobile strategy that can accommodate any requirement seamlessly and efficiently, a “best fit” experience to the end-user is always within reach. Enterprises around the world are seeking advice and experimenting with a variety of solutions for their websites that can address this highly fragmented and diverse mobile device reality their customers are living in. Some have defaulted to optimizing for only the leading and/or latest mobile device, such as the iPhone 5. Others have taken a responsive Web design approach creating websites that can rearrange themselves based on browser classifications of device size. But neither of these strategies will work for all customers using the mobile Web. Without a device database, your website will be broken for someone, somewhere.

The importance of context

A device database is a cloud-based library of intelligent device information, which can provide accurate and detailed profiling of any connecting device, far beyond the capabilities of a browser. Knowing which device your customer is using, how they are using it and the functionalities and features of that device, is crucial for an “unbroken” mobile Web strategy. Fragmentation is increasing, making the need for the implementation of some form of device context service (device database) even more urgent.

The Netbiscuits Quarterly Metrics report published in December 2012 revealed that a strategy even catering for all of the top ten devices globally would only capture 56% of the total mobile traffic around the world. In the coming years, there will be a demand to connect even more to the Web, on even more devices with new browsers and new operating systems. Companies must ensure that their website or application adapts to each device to deliver the best possible customized Web experience.

Good, but not good enough

Many companies have explored or deployed a RWD strategy to achieve this. However, a website built using RWD alone can experience significant load time delays on images and video. RWD will not address the complexity of making features like touch work across all devices. To avoid such limitations, some organisations choose to combine RWD with some server-side information for feature and device detection. This is where a device database is critical to success. And the quality of your device information library will ultimately determine the quality of the end user experience and engagement.

Device detection should combine information held in a database, with information that is specific to an individual’s phone at that particular moment. Information about the phone is held in the server (such as screen size), whereas information from the phone is received after the user connects (such as location). A device database can hold incredibly detailed information and the advantages of using such a service with RWD include less “page bloat,” which speeds up loading times, and an adaptive navigation structure and content delivery which can be customised for the different tasks performed by mobile and desktop users. Without this type of information, weaker mobile browsers can suffer from too much content, poor usability and a suboptimal experience.

The user expectation gap

A recent study conducted earlier this year by Johan Johannson found that on average, most pure RWD sites were not implemented optimally for mobile and had slow load times. Using examples such as Starbucks (average load time 14.99 seconds with an iPhone 4); WWF, (average load time 6.91 seconds); and The Boston Globe (5.5 seconds) he found that the sites compared unfavourably to sites using a combination. In 2011, Compuware conducted a study of 4,000 mobile users, which found that users are much less forgiving than the capability of many responsive design sites. Seventy-four percent of mobile users surveyed said they would leave a site within five seconds, and 60% said that they expect mobile sites to load in under three seconds. The figures from Johannson suggest that RWD can still fail users on loading times, adding to the urgency of the need for change.