Mobile and tablet internet usage exceeds desktop for first time

Does your web site work well on mobile phones and tablet computers?  

Worldwide internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop for the first time during October, according to independent web analytics company StatCounter. 

“This should be a wake up call especially for small businesses, sole traders and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly. Many older websites are not,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.

Although these are worldwide statistics, UK businesses should not be complacent.  A breakdown of the StatCounter data shows that in the UK desktop usage stands at 55.6% with mobile and tablet usage at 44.4%.

Vectis WebDesign have been designing mobile friendly web sites for years. There's more to designing a mobile friendly site than just how it looks.  Many web designers say their sites are "responsive", and its' true that the design looks OK on a mobile phone, but there is more to being mobile friendly than just being "responsive".

At Vectis WebDesign we look at all aspects of the design, not only how the site 'looks' on a mobile phone, but just as importantly how quickly does the site load, how easy is the navigation from page to page, do all the important parts of the page show up without too much scrolling.

Vectis WebDesign's David Groom says "It's important to realise how quickly things have changed. When Aodhan Cullen talks of "older web sites" he's basically talking about any web site which was designed more than 4 years ago, so rapid has been the growth in mobile and tablet devices to access the internet".