Editorial Articles

The rise of the mobile web means designers and hosts must rethink their approach

This is a very interesting time to be in the web design and hosting industry and if the experience of the designers we speak to is a litmus test, then it’s also a time of great opportunity. Not only is the available pool of available urls about to increase almost infinitely with the dawn of IPv6 this year, but the maturing of tablet and mobile web platforms gives even greater scope.

That also means greater scope for some brand owners to get things wrong. Historically, a company could get away with a simple site just for IE and Firefox on a simple web server, often in their own office. 

Now however, no company can afford to ignore the changes and the need to ensure that their website works in whatever browser and device comes to market. There is a big decision then - both in terms of design and website hosting. So it’s likely that more companies and brands will be outsourcing some or all of this to designers.

For a design and hosting business then, there are now more decisions: on whether you refer clients to sort out their own hosting - or you deal with that for them - and then, do you go fora fully managed or self-service hosting supplier?

How you decide to go will be driven by your customers’ needs and your own strengths. Hosting providers like Easyspace provide a spectrum of products and services to help you manage and drive good profit from this aspect of your business. This includes affiliate linking, mobile solutions, reseller packages or even self-hosting. 

Web design business
Like any creative service, web design is about as managed as it gets, with designers’ clients being billed for their talent and ideas. Despite being digital and web-based, the fact that these are billed on an hourly basis reinforces the fact that design is the product of human creativity.

But web design continues to evolve in a very interesting way. 

The desktop website has developed a lot since the early brochure-ware sites to include a great deal more than pure and simple functionality. Now a site will have finely tuned branding supported by social and multi-media to build on that brand experience. 

The need for a mobile website, however, has added another dimension, with more than four mobile devices for every PC in the market. Thanks largely to the influence of the tablets, iPhone and Android, users are showing a strong preference for mobile websites that enable users to navigate as easily as possible and get the information they need, while retaining the core of the brand experience.

Mobile web opportunities
To address this, the launch of the GoMobi platform by Easyspace in collaboration with Tucows will enable designers to produce mobile sites to exploit the special characteristics of mobile phones. 

With the variety of browsers in the mobile space, from simple text-based ones up to the smartphones and tablets, a site needs to be able to display optimally in each one. GoMobi gets around the need to invest in learning a new formatting language for these, or resurrect an old one such as WML, with the formatting being an integral part of the tool.

The technology is thoroughly tested on thousands of platforms ensuring the correct display of the site and providing the best possible experience to users, all wrapped up in an easy to use interface. 

Web designers will always make their living on talent, ideas and full service. But mobile creates demand for a new kind of website, goMobi offers a great self-service solution and designers are in a unique position to deliver it to the market.

Chris Tradgett, Easyspace.com
www.easyspace.com/