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Websites designed for mobile

How have web innovations advanced with time?

Websites rely on a range of technologies cooperating and working in sync to create the wonderful multimedia resource they are in the 21st century. What are these and how have they developed from the basic tool they were when the web was in its infancy in the 1980s?

Launched in 1992, HTML, a markup language that has been around since the birth of the web is the main foundation of any website. It allows web designers and developers to write code that can be sent over the internet and that can be interpreted by the browser on your local device. The code or 'markup' uses html tags to structure, style and render content in a way that users can read and enjoy, and the web wouldn't exist without it.

Along with HTML came the first browser, Mosaic, and if you saw it today, the features are such that you'd easily identify it as a browser - home, back and forward buttons and an address bar. Internet Explorer and Opera were subsequently launched, along with HTML2 which was an evolution of HTML but with a number of advancements. HTML didn't stay with us for long, and by 1997 both HTML3 and HTML4 had been released, and these included input from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) which ensured that HTML was developed for the good of all, and that the potentially conflicting interests of contributing parties did not take over.

HTML4 was to be the standard for around ten years, and its presence was lengthy enough that the '4' was almost universally deemed unneccessary and it was know simply as 'HTML'.

Flash, Java and Javascript were released, allowing website to feature more engaging and interactive content, and CSS came about to separate the styling of a website from its content. Chrome, Firefox and Safari were launched to give users greater options when choosing a browser software with which to browse the web. Incremental updates were made to HTML in the form of XML, but it wasn't until 2008 that HTML made a significant step forward with the release of HTML5 (and CSS3) gave the web designer a greater number of tools with which to build interactive, engaging, dynamic, immersive websites, which run client-side and which run natively in the latest generation of browsers without the need for any plugins.

2009 saw the launch of Maddison Creative Web Design Newcastle.

Currently, the primary driver of innovation change in the web industry is the advancement of mobile technology and the number of users who are choosing to consume web-data on-the-go using a handheld, touchscreen device. This has had a significant impact on who websites are designed and built.

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, what are responsive websites and how is web design affected?

Two out of every three minutes spent online in the UK are users browsing on either a smartphone or a tablet. 13% of adults in the UK browse the internet exclusively using their smartphone, 2% more than browse exclusively on their desktop computer.

In the last two years tablet internet use grew by almost a third, and in the same two year period smartphone use grew by 78%, while desktop internet use has decreased.

The way people use smartphones to access the internet has revolutionized the way websites are built. Long gone are the days that companies were happy to have customers browse their full, desktop version of their site on their smartphone, causing users to zoom in and out of areas of the page that interested them, struggling to click on the tiny text links to navigate. If you're building a website for the modern internet user, the likelihood is that if they don't view your site exclusively on their mobile device, they'll at least check you out via their iPhone or Android phone before sitting down later at their computer to have a more in-depth look.

This is why most clients want a 'mobile-first' approach to their website, whereby you ensure that everything looks and behaves beautifully on a mobile device before considering a desktop version, and if something has to compromise, it certainly won't be the mobile site.

A 'responsive' website is one that adapts to the device it's being viewed on, whether that is a desktop computer, a mobile phone or a tablet. The content is then displayed in a way that is optimized for said device, improving user experience.

How long might my web design project take and when will you be able to fit it in?

Just like estimating the cost of a website it's almost impossible to give an idea of how long a website might take to design and build without more specific infomration about what the web design project might entail. Once we've had an initial chat, we can give you a rough guide as to how long it might take, and then once you've given us a brief we can give you an idea of exactly how long it will take and when we can accommodate the request. We prode ourselves on being able to meet any (reasonable) deadline, and we can generally accommodate most jobs within two week period once the scope of work has been agreed - obviously the signoff date will vary on the complexity of the project.

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