The practice of developing mobile sites
In the early autumn of this year, my colleagues from CMS Magazine conducted a survey, in which we took part and shared our experience and opinion of more than 500 web studios and agencies, for which many thanks to them.
We publish some of the results here, hoping that many of you will be interested in this data and leave your comments or use them as needed in reports / meetings and so on.
And yes, attention: there are a lot of pictures under the cut!
Supply and demand
During the year (from mid 2011 to mid 2012), each company developed an average of 25 sites. At the same time, only 16% of produced sites were adapted for mobile devices (that is, they had an adaptive layout or a mobile version). And only half of the mobile sites had any extended functionality (personal account, online order, etc.).
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"How many sites have been developed by your company in the last year?"
The main reason for this situation is the lack of demand for mobile support among customers: only 15% of agencies feel this demand.
"Is there a demand for the adaptation of the site for mobile devices?"
Interestingly, Moscow and St. Petersburg customers ignore mobile devices in the same way as in the regions: only 17% of agencies feel the demand.
In turn, the reason for the lack of demand is that customers do not expect tangible traffic from mobile devices, and also do not want to increase the budget for the development of the site. A quarter of developers do not even offer such a service to customers.
Meanwhile, according to Liveinternet.ru, in Runet, more than 20% of the traffic comes from Android, iOS and Symbian mobile operating systems. Obviously, such a number of potential visitors cannot be ignored. Therefore, the skepticism of customers regarding the demand for the mobile presentation of the site is partly inertial.
As stated above, only 16% of the sites created during the year were adapted for mobile devices. The leaders of the agencies themselves believe that this number should be much larger: 37% of respondents believe that almost all sites produced by their agency should be adapted for mobile devices; another 36% - which is about every second. With certain assumptions, this data can be considered the expert opinion of the web developer community.
“How many of the sites that you developed over the last year objectively needed to be equipped with a mobile version or made adaptive?”
The feasibility of support for mobile devices
Obviously, the feasibility of supporting mobile devices varies depending on the type (model) of the site: for web services (social networks, email, schedules), the mobile version is more important than for corporate “business card sites”. Interestingly, according to professional developers, of those site models that are most often developed by web agencies to order, only online stores should certainly be adapted for mobile devices. And the feasibility for corporate sites is already significantly lower.
“For which types of sites is it generally advisable to create fully functional mobile versions?”
The answer to the question “should the site be adapted for mobile devices” should be based on the scenarios of site content consumption. In general, people use the mobile web in order to “clarify information / contacts”, “quickly order”, “find out the schedule”, “watch the news”, that is, situationally. For a detailed study of information (including product range), mobile devices, especially telephones, are not so convenient. Based on the site use scenarios, it is possible to determine whether it is necessary to support mobile devices, to what extent to present mobile content, what functionality to provide a mobile site.
Speaking about the functionality of site management systems (CMS) in the context of mobile sites, it is obvious that CMS should support the main functions of working with mobile sites:
Below is a list of additional features that web developers consider most popular for mobile sites.
“Which of the listed modules / functionals are most in demand on mobile sites?”
Practical issues
There are two ways to adapt a site for mobile devices: creating a mobile site “side by side” with the main one, and also creating a single site for all types of devices (site with adaptive layout). We did not consider the third method (a single site for all types of devices; the design pattern varies depending on the type of device) due to lack of versatility, since it is suitable for a small number of site models, for example, media, blogs.
The choice of method depends on many factors (site model, the paradigm of using the site from mobile devices), incl. from the cost. The diagram below shows how the cost of an average website project changes if:
“How will the cost of your average project increase if you put a mobile version in it or make a website adaptive?”
In the general case, a responsive website is developed cheaper than a couple of “primary and mobile sites”.
A separate important issue that arises when developing a mobile site is design. In Russia, ready-made design templates are relatively rarely used in custom web development (for example, templatemonster.com): as a rule, an individual template is developed for each new “full-format” website. Mobile sites, due to the small working space (screen), give the designer and designer much less opportunity to decorate and decorate, display large menus, advertising banners and widgets. In addition, there is an opinion that the interface of the mobile site should resemble the interface of the operating system of the phone rather than the corporate style of the company that owns the site. Therefore, web agencies are more tolerant of standard design layouts: 71% of respondents admit the use of ready-made mobile site templates (13% in each project, 58% - according to the situation).
“Do you (and your customers) believe that the mobile version of the site should have a unique, specially designed for the customer, design?”
It must be borne in mind that adaptive websites emerged as a trend in development only last year, while most large information projects started mobile versions of sites many years ago, even before the boom of smartphones and mobile Internet. However, this time was enough for developers to appreciate the idea and like it.
And now more than half of the developers believe that the future lies precisely with responsive sites.
Final conclusions
The full version of the study with comments NetCat and CMS Magazine, as well as basic data that can even be used to create your own graphs - by reference .
We publish some of the results here, hoping that many of you will be interested in this data and leave your comments or use them as needed in reports / meetings and so on.
And yes, attention: there are a lot of pictures under the cut!
Supply and demand
During the year (from mid 2011 to mid 2012), each company developed an average of 25 sites. At the same time, only 16% of produced sites were adapted for mobile devices (that is, they had an adaptive layout or a mobile version). And only half of the mobile sites had any extended functionality (personal account, online order, etc.).
')
"How many sites have been developed by your company in the last year?"
The main reason for this situation is the lack of demand for mobile support among customers: only 15% of agencies feel this demand.
"Is there a demand for the adaptation of the site for mobile devices?"
Interestingly, Moscow and St. Petersburg customers ignore mobile devices in the same way as in the regions: only 17% of agencies feel the demand.
In turn, the reason for the lack of demand is that customers do not expect tangible traffic from mobile devices, and also do not want to increase the budget for the development of the site. A quarter of developers do not even offer such a service to customers.
Meanwhile, according to Liveinternet.ru, in Runet, more than 20% of the traffic comes from Android, iOS and Symbian mobile operating systems. Obviously, such a number of potential visitors cannot be ignored. Therefore, the skepticism of customers regarding the demand for the mobile presentation of the site is partly inertial.
As stated above, only 16% of the sites created during the year were adapted for mobile devices. The leaders of the agencies themselves believe that this number should be much larger: 37% of respondents believe that almost all sites produced by their agency should be adapted for mobile devices; another 36% - which is about every second. With certain assumptions, this data can be considered the expert opinion of the web developer community.
“How many of the sites that you developed over the last year objectively needed to be equipped with a mobile version or made adaptive?”
The feasibility of support for mobile devices
Obviously, the feasibility of supporting mobile devices varies depending on the type (model) of the site: for web services (social networks, email, schedules), the mobile version is more important than for corporate “business card sites”. Interestingly, according to professional developers, of those site models that are most often developed by web agencies to order, only online stores should certainly be adapted for mobile devices. And the feasibility for corporate sites is already significantly lower.
“For which types of sites is it generally advisable to create fully functional mobile versions?”
The answer to the question “should the site be adapted for mobile devices” should be based on the scenarios of site content consumption. In general, people use the mobile web in order to “clarify information / contacts”, “quickly order”, “find out the schedule”, “watch the news”, that is, situationally. For a detailed study of information (including product range), mobile devices, especially telephones, are not so convenient. Based on the site use scenarios, it is possible to determine whether it is necessary to support mobile devices, to what extent to present mobile content, what functionality to provide a mobile site.
Speaking about the functionality of site management systems (CMS) in the context of mobile sites, it is obvious that CMS should support the main functions of working with mobile sites:
- structure and content management;
- support for different templates for displaying information on different types of sites;
- automatic detection of the user's device type;
- automatic or manual transition to a similar page of a mobile site from the main site and vice versa;
- the ability to broadcast content from the main site to the mobile (to avoid duplication of work on content management).
Below is a list of additional features that web developers consider most popular for mobile sites.
“Which of the listed modules / functionals are most in demand on mobile sites?”
Practical issues
There are two ways to adapt a site for mobile devices: creating a mobile site “side by side” with the main one, and also creating a single site for all types of devices (site with adaptive layout). We did not consider the third method (a single site for all types of devices; the design pattern varies depending on the type of device) due to lack of versatility, since it is suitable for a small number of site models, for example, media, blogs.
The choice of method depends on many factors (site model, the paradigm of using the site from mobile devices), incl. from the cost. The diagram below shows how the cost of an average website project changes if:
- provide the main site with a mobile version
- develop an adaptive site (correctly working on any type of devices)
“How will the cost of your average project increase if you put a mobile version in it or make a website adaptive?”
In the general case, a responsive website is developed cheaper than a couple of “primary and mobile sites”.
A separate important issue that arises when developing a mobile site is design. In Russia, ready-made design templates are relatively rarely used in custom web development (for example, templatemonster.com): as a rule, an individual template is developed for each new “full-format” website. Mobile sites, due to the small working space (screen), give the designer and designer much less opportunity to decorate and decorate, display large menus, advertising banners and widgets. In addition, there is an opinion that the interface of the mobile site should resemble the interface of the operating system of the phone rather than the corporate style of the company that owns the site. Therefore, web agencies are more tolerant of standard design layouts: 71% of respondents admit the use of ready-made mobile site templates (13% in each project, 58% - according to the situation).
“Do you (and your customers) believe that the mobile version of the site should have a unique, specially designed for the customer, design?”
It must be borne in mind that adaptive websites emerged as a trend in development only last year, while most large information projects started mobile versions of sites many years ago, even before the boom of smartphones and mobile Internet. However, this time was enough for developers to appreciate the idea and like it.
And now more than half of the developers believe that the future lies precisely with responsive sites.
Final conclusions
- Currently, demand among customers for the adaptation of sites for mobile devices is extremely small, despite the significant share of mobile traffic in RuNet.
- Indicators of demand are approximately equal in both capitals and in Russia as a whole.
- Website developers do not support this skepticism of customers, but they rarely manage to overcome it.
- A significant percentage of developers consider it important to adapt for mobile devices for information and service projects, as well as for online stores; other, more common site models (corporate, personal, promotional sites) are much less common.
- The most important functional modules for a mobile site (besides self-evident) are the basic features of an online store, search, integration with social networks, communication tools, personal account.
- Website adaptation for mobile devices will most often increase the project budget by 20-50%, while adaptive websites will rather be cheaper than creating a mobile version.
- Most developers allow the use of standard mobile site design templates.
- According to the professional community, the future of the web lies in responsive websites.
The full version of the study with comments NetCat and CMS Magazine, as well as basic data that can even be used to create your own graphs - by reference .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/160399/
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