Mobile Web Development

As most people would have noticed over the past few years is the increased prevalence of smartphones within today's society. Obviously, this comes with lots of advantages, internet access on the go, increased connectivity and so on. However, this presents another user base for Web Developers, the increase of users accessing the web from mobile devices has apparently increased to 13% of all internet traffic according to this article. This is a huge increase from two years ago where it was only 4%. This is both excellent for web designers and developers and an added complication. Not many sites transition well from their desktop form to mobile devices gracefully without some customisation.

Mobile users are an advantageous market to capture for many web developers as they don't need to be near a PC or Laptop for a user to browse their site and most people have their mobiles on them at all times. Web developers need to make some adjustments for mobile users, because of the smaller screens, less precision when it comes to navigation, and some mobile devices have less than capable browsers. Unfortunately, the largest disadvantage for many is the lack of speed, or lack of connectivity in the first place. Many users can only connect to the internet on their mobile device through Wi-Fi or similar technology, although using mobile networks to browse the internet is becoming cheaper and often included with many mobile plans. Another option for mobile web development is to create a dedicated app for users, this can also bring in extra revenue if developers charge for an app which can make the money and time invested in creating an app/mobile version of a site worth it.

Clearly, this upwards trend of mobile users using the internet will only keep rising as the convenience is incredibly advantageous, especially to web developers or designers. Web development has become even more nuanced, with developers having to consider such a large range of access, from different types of browsers on desktops and laptops to different mobile platforms and even game consoles.