That’s probably the question that we’re asked most frequently at TSW System Solutions. Why is good and effective website design so important for successful business growth? Well, hopefully we can answer that question for you and demonstrate that good website design and development isn’t just important, it’s crucial. If your business gets its website design right, it will prosper: customers will be attracted to your website and will stay that little bit longer because you’ve provided all the information they require, particularly if your website designer has presented this information in a sympathetic and intuitive way. Get the design wrong, and it can break the business: customers will either fail to notice the products and services you’re offering, or bounce away from the site and go to one of your competitors. It’s that simple. Well planned and executed website design and development can determine whether a business succeeds or fails. Continue reading →

Internet marketing and company profitability is crucial in today’s increasingly competitive market. The more traffic that can be driven to any website, the more likely it is that some of that traffic will convert into sales. It makes sense therefore for website designers to drive as many users as possible to websites, and that means making the most of the ever-expanding and influential mobile market. However, it may concern some of the companies who are desperate to attract this traffic that it appears half of mobile website designers are failing to take mobile phone users into account and are not designing websites for mobile visitors. Continue reading →

According to recent figures released by the telecommunications watchdog, Ofcom, a third of all adults now own and use a smartphone. The figure is even higher for the younger generation. Ofcom’s annual Communications Marketing Report combines the work carried out by the regulator’s own research with work carried out by other industry analysts. The 341 page document provides a detailed snapshot of the nations’ TV, radio, internet and telecommunications consumption. The figures will have obvious resonance for both mobile website designers and anyone involved in the world of mobile internet, but do they tell us anything we didn’t really know before? Continue reading →

Mobile website design is becoming increasingly more complex as mobile phone technology improves. Users expect more and more of the services they have come to accept as commonplace , or standard, on desktops to be available on their mobile phones. Unfortunately mobile are currently at somewhat of a disadvantage. Although they now have similar number crunching powers to desktops, mobiles still have limitations in terms of screen size, download speed and the fact that the site architecture needs to be simplified if its is to work efficiently. In last week’s article we looked briefly at how AJAX is helping to overcome some of these limitations. This week we’ll have a look at AJAX in a little more detail. Continue reading →

Designing any website for a mobile phone is a challenging experience. As clever as the technology of the smartphone is these days, there are still certain inherent problems that the mobile website designer has to overcome if he or she is to make the website as effective as it can possibly be.  The screen size of the mobile device itself is limiting, and affects the type of content that can be incorporated into the overall design: similarly the site architecture will have to also be simplified, because moving around and navigating mobile websites is much more difficult on a mobile phone than a conventional desk top or laptop. One thing that is often overlooked is the relevance and importance of download speed. As smart as a mobile phone is, it can’t download information currently at anything like the rate of a traditional pc. It is considerably slower, and therefore this needs to be born in mind by the web designer. Continue reading →

Designing a mobile website doesn’t need to be complicated. Granted, there are special considerations that need to be borne in mind, but practicality and ease of use should always be uppermost in the designers mind. Obviously the easiest answer would be to modify the existing primary website to make it compatible for mobile handsets, but this isn’t always practical, nor as easy as it might at first seem. It’s important to remember that there will have to be some big changes made to the website to make it compatible for mobiles, like layout, design and construction. So, is it easier to build a new design from scratch, or can you just tweak your primary website to suit? The answer is it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. It’s horses for courses unfortunately, but hopefully the following tips might help. Continue reading →

In its annual mobile technology report, Forrester Research has outlined the trends it expects to see in mobile websites and mobile website design in the coming year. The hype around technologies like 4G and LTE, Near Field Communication (NFC), barcodes and augmented reality will continue to increase in 2011, and the use of mobile/social/location combinations will also soar, the report says. But for companies, the primary goal should still be focused be on developing mobile business cases and strategies, and not jumping on the bandwagons surrounding these types of technologies. So, what exactly does the report see as the 10 most important mobile website trends this year? Continue reading →

Be honest, how often have you been disappointed by the mobile web experience? You can almost tell with some mobile web sites that they haven’t so much been designed, as compressed and fudged. You can notice straight away when a designer has followed the path of least resistance and simply tried to pair down the main website so that it fits in a mobile format. It just doesn’t work. All you end up with is a mobile website that doesn’t deliver and a set of disgruntled customers who probably won’t be bothered to shop with that particular business ever again. Mobile website design is a specialised subject. Now some might argue that anyone could do it satisfactorily, but we at TSW System Solutions don’t agree. Professionally designed mobile websites not only look the part, but they also deliver: they’re usable, simple, practical, accessible and thoughtfully designed. So what’s the most important part of mobile website design? The answer to that is usability. Continue reading →

It’s long been predicted that mobile internet usage would overtake fixed-line internet usage. All industry experts agreed that this was a likely scenario. Where they differed in opinion was when this was most likely to occur. Some believed the tipping point would come as early as 2010; others were more cautious believing that it may not in fact happen until 2015. Fortunately a substantial study by Mary Meeker, head of global technology research at Morgan Stanley, called the ‘State of the Internet’ has now gone some way to fixing a more definite date and suggests that this final tipping point will finally arrive some time in 2013. As with all predictions, however, this finite date may be liable to change. Continue reading →

Accessing the internet through mobile handheld devices is commonplace these days. All businesses have realised that a large majority of their potential customers will want to access information when they’re out and about. Therefore it’s important for businesses to be in a position to make this information available quickly and conveniently. Obviously this means that companies will have to provide mobile websites for these customers. So does this mean simply making the primary website available for mobile devices? Well, in a sense yes, but it needs modified to make it both mobile-friendly and accessible for the user. Continue reading →