A couple of months or so back, I made a pretty big change for mobile users after some feedback from those of you on iPhones and iPads. After listening to feedback, tweaking a few items and watching the usage numbers go up, I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that Photography Bay is much easier to consume on your Apple iOS or Android device now.
While the iPhone and iPad are the top dogs for Photography Bay mobile users, Android users are a not-to-distant third place (I’m an HTC EVO 4G guy myself). The reading experience for all mobile users is much cleaner and contains less ads. It’s also pretty darn fast as compared to loading the full site on your mobile browser (even if I did accidentally kill the mobile version this past week…sorry).
Basically, loading photographybay.com in your iPhone or iPad’s Safari browser enables “Web App” mode and provides a clean app-like experience while browsing Photography Bay. The content is front and center, and is scaled for the optimal reading experience from your mobile device.
I’ve also changed the way YouTube and other embedded videos are handled. As a result, most of the posted videos from here on out will be viewable on the iPad and iPhone.
You can quickly browse the most recent stories by just the headlines on the front page. If you want to read a story, just click the title. I killed the article excerpts for mobile phones (not the iPad though) in order to make the front page load faster over cellular networks.
If you want to comment on a post, it’s a pretty smooth experience too. At the bottom of individual posts, you can click the button to leave a comment and you get a comment box that is optimized for your device. This is really smooth on the iPad.
Same thing with sharing a post on Facebook, Twitter, Instapaper, or the like. Just click the button at the bottom and you get a menu that works well with your mobile device.
Finally, if you would rather use the regular view for Photography Bay, there’s a link at the bottom of the mobile site that allows you to “Switch to Regular Theme.”
I hope these changes help you get more out of Photography Bay. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there are other ways to make things better.
http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/09/the-boston-globe-embraces-responsive-design/
Ugh, I want the web on my iPad to look like the web on my computer. I see no benefit to these wordpress plugins to mobilify the internet. All it does is take away features and confuse readers. In your case, it’s actually harder to view the content. What kind of photography site does away with pictures in their story feed? Eric hit the nail on the head with the Boston.com comment. People need to build better websites that work on all devices.
Thanks for the feedback Adam. Unfortunately, Photography Bay doesn’t have the web design budget that The Boston Globe has though (admittedly, it looks great). Photography Bay runs on WordPress, and I don’t see that changing at any point in the foreseeable future. So, whatever kind of design is implemented – it will be tied to WordPress. While this certainly isn’t the perfect solution, it has been more engaging with mobile readers since its implementation. Pictures are only cut from pages where multiple articles appear – all the photos should still be visible on individual article pages.
Additionally, as noted above, you have the ordinary web experience accessible on your iPad by switching to the regular version of the site. If you have suggestions on practical and cost-effective solutions for a better design, please feel free to pass them along. Likewise, if you would like to volunteer your time and expertise to help with a better mobile integration, that would be awesome.
From a fellow EVO 4G user, thank you!