Is your website reacting to the latest browser trends for 2014?

Put simply, are you focusing on your UX for today’s consumer market by making your website responsive?

If you don’t yet know what a responsive website is or what ‘UX’ means, then quite frankly you probably aren’t keeping up with the latest online trends.  But unlike fads that come and go, this very powerful trend is here to stay and will affect your business whether you like it or not.

Mobile Responsiveness and the UX (User Experience)

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Having a website that responds to the size of the mobile device it is viewed on, such as tablets, smartphones and mobile phones is essential these days. If yours doesn’t ‘shrink to fit’, then you could be doing a lot more harm to your business than you think.

Almost 13 million smartphone tablets were sold in the UK during 2013. This means that nearly half of the entire UK population now owns a tablet of some kind. And the percentage of UK adults who use their mobile phone to access the internet rose to 49% in the first quarter of 2013. If you consider that only a fifth of all adults used their handset to access the internet in 2010 – that’s an almighty change in consumer behaviour that online business owners really can’t afford not to respond to.

And if you think it’s only the younger population who are making the move to mobile technology for surfing the web – you can think again…

mobile internet usage UK 2013

The research above shows that in all demographic sectors of society, there has been a substantial increase in mobile internet usage from 2009-2013 and its predicted to rise even more sharply again this year. So as more and more people get au-fait with researching, browsing and buying via their mobile devices, the more mobile internet savvy they are, the greater their expectation will be with regard to performance and ease-of-use the websites they visit.

M-commerce is accelerating at such a rate that many organisations are struggling to keep up. As mobile starts to justify focus that is equal to, if not greater than more conventional channels, those who dedicate investment and sufficient attention to the channel are likely to benefit.

Source: Mintel

For publishers, it offers the simplest way to reach readers across multiple devices. For users, it ensures a great experience on every screen. And, for those of us who create websites, all this leads to a singular conclusion: millions of screens have blossomed, and we need to build for all of them.

At LA Marketing, all of our web design projects are built with a mobile-first approach and that is a responsibility we take very seriously. Launching a website into today’s market without ‘shrink-to-fit’ capability is essentially irresponsible – it would be like expecting a cheetah to compete in a race whilst wearing a blindfold.  And as a marketing agency we are very sensitive and proactive to helping business enhance their reach – not limit their performance before they’ve even left the paddock.