How to make your web site compatible for multiple devices

As users start to change their devices, it becomes important that your website changes to suite your customer’s platform.

But why? It can be the simple reason that you are losing out on a customer that cannot make sense out of what they see when your website pages do not show correctly or are simply difficult to understand.

Today “responsive websites” automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on.This has now become widely popular among designers as well as it cuts time in having to redesign for each new platform.

The three main technologies of web design being HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript are all displayed slightly differently by each browser and while these differences may be insignificant, sometimes they can make or break a website. Mobile phones and tablets cannot load the web pages as quickly as computers. It is essential for the developer to make websites that can quickly open on mobiles. Using an HTML validator is useful to find out whether your codes are correct.

Tools & technologies to create a mobile & tablet version of  your website

Here are some tips you might want to know to make sure your website is compatible throughout multiple devices.

• Track your mobile traffic patterns- You can use web site analytic tools for this and get an idea about your mobile traffic
• Install a mobile plugin – If you are using WordPress (CMS) then it is a simple plug-in which can install within 30 seconds
• Use A Responsive Theme – Use a very simple one that loads fast
• Customised Mobile Site Solutions – You can use maintenance tools for this purpose, which are explained below

• Create smart navigation – It will bring about easy use of the site

• Include a search bar -Mobile and Tablet users can find information easily
• Don’t use too many images – It will reduce the time that your site takes to load
• Get user feedback – You can make your site more user friendly through feedbacks

When you are creating a mobile version of your web site, there are some tools that you can use to check your mobile page. Google Mobile Optimizer,  Mippin,  Mobify,  iWebKit,  Wirenode, are some mobile version testing tools.

Whether your major tasks include social networking, organizing recreational activities, online shopping, reading news or blogs; offering your site in classic and mobile versions gives you the upper hand.

If the user is using an iPad, remember iPads don’t use Flash. If you have Flash content on your site, simply redirect the user to the mobile version. Also consider making your site in mobile responsive theme , HTML5 and CSS3.

About responsive templates used in Content Management Systems (CMS)
Mobile responsive theme helps website to breakdown smoothly across multiple devices. It means across different screen sizes , different platforms, different resolutions etc. So when you use a responsive theme for your website then you can see your website same in every device. Therefor no need of additional themes or re sizing your website by yourself in every device. How can you make your site responsive ? The most popular method adopted by developers is by using plugins. Most websites using CMS templates now come with mobile ready templates as well.

HTML5 and CSS3 Design technologies
As web languages continue to develop design technologies such as HTML and CSS have also evolved to provide designs which can expand itself across multiple devices. Designers and developers today use these languages to develop to solve the issue of multiple device viewers.

Ultimately with screen sizes changing in laptops, tablets and desktops the idea is to have a website that is flexible across different screen and resolution sizes.

Created: October 11th, 2013