Mobile Websites

Investors are mobile, too

Much has been written about the enormous trend to mobile devices. Those of us who sit on buses or trains can attest to it, even those who walk along our city streets. Investors are participating in this trend as much as others.

Companies work hard to communicate a strong message and user experience. It’s best to make sure that your investors enjoy that experience, regardless of the device they use.

The website must look great on every phone or tablet (landscape or portrait), browser or screen size. Don’t compromise, this is not negotiable. Mobile also means fast, without huge downloads.

Responsive design

Responsive design is the process of creating websites (and all other online material, eg email messages and newsletters) to provide an optimal user experience regardless of the type of device used to access the site. The desired outcome is an easy reading and navigation experience across all devices with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling.

This also includes “adaptive” design, where websites perform differently depending on mouse clicking or finger-touching access methods.

When applied properly, responsive sites work automatically across a wide range of devices – including traditional website views on desktop computer monitors and laptops through to mobile phones, tablets and other devices, either in portrait or landscape orientation.

Responsive design means we no longer need to have a separate moblie website. This was a trend for a few years, where a few web pages were duplicated on a separate site for mobile devices, but these days there's virtually no new separate mobile sites. IRM clients have no separate mobile sites.

Google is driving the change

Google says “When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, no matter if the information lives on mobile-friendly web pages or apps. As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns.”

In April 2015, Google announced that “the mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages -- pages that are legible and usable on mobile devices -- in mobile search results worldwide. (Conversely, pages designed for only large screens may see a significant decrease in rankings in mobile search results.)”. These changes have been dubbed "mobilegeddon".

So the message is clear – be mobile friendly, or drop down in Google searches on mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly site keeps the same SEO ranking that you have worked hard to develop.

Google mobile tests

Google provides webmasters with the ability to test whether web pages or whole web sites are mobile friendly, and also assesses similar criteria such as the mobile user experience, and page speed of sites on both mobile and desktop devices.

IRM and responsive design

All IRM websites built since 2013 have been built on our responsive design technology platforms. All pages on IRM websites respond to different devices of any width, with either mouse clicking or finger-touching access, so the user experience across all devices is as smooth and beautiful as it is when viewed on a desktop. All IRM designed email alert templates are also responsive, as are our online annual reports and other online investor tools.

IRM websites on average have superior performance to Australian listed company averages in all aspects of the Google mobile tests – mobile friendly, user experience and page speed (mobile and desktop).

If you're with IRM, you're mobile!

More Information

Read more about Responsive Design on IRMatters here, or look at the importance of mobile as a success factor in our Success Factors white paper, here.