A couple of months after replacing my PC, I have got around to making a few more updates to the site - I had quite a bit left to do after the changes to the layout etc that ended in Ramadan, but I never got around to them.
Right now, I have added preliminary support for a couple more sizes - screens that were 320px wide (eg iphone and smaller android phones) were already supported, but there was much wasted space on slightly larger devices - those that had a default device width of 340 or 360 pixels were less well supported creating wasted space.
That should now be fixed. I am aware that on some pages the page is being "stretched", making the view zoomed out and less easy to read. That might be figured out.
A major oversight before was that the site didnt easily fit into screens that were 600 device-pixels wide. Tablets such as the Nexus 7 seem to default to this zoom level and that is a biggie. This should now also be supported.
At this point, viewing content will be the best it probably can be on these screens. Posting content on the other hand still has a lot to be desired for - the wysiwyg interface while useful anf featureful on a laptop/desktop seems to leave for a lot to be desired on tablet/phone interfaces. This is still on the agenda to fix.
The end goal is to make this site feel as much like an app as possible on mobile platforms. (starting the next update of chrome on android, there should be an option to add to home screen where the site doesnt have a url bar at the top.)
On a broader note, We have managed to get to a place where this site can be easily consumed on a mobile device.
The world is changing in such a way that a large number of people now use mobile prodicts to access websites and if a website is not accessible on a mbile device, upto 50% of the sites audience may be being missed!
I am surprised how few sites are optimised for the mobile experience - on many news sites you have to struggle to get the writing to a size where it can be easily read. Some will even have "popovers" that are impossible to close on small screens! (I am looking at you Huffington Post!)
Considering te general layout of the big news sites (two columns, one with the main content, the other full of links), I would think that mobile friendly design should be pretty easy for them, but instead they are like dinosaurs with badly optimised sites.
The Guardian on the other hand is good, and its android app is also very good at handling its content and comments.
This site still has a long way to go, but its ahead of many other sites which need to get a move on and realise that people use mobile devices to access websites.
Comments
gotta target them too. When I went on a train journey recently (aka 9 months ago,) I saw a lot of people with ipads on trains.
This was probably because the cramped room is not that comfortable with even a laptop.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.