rsponsive vs mobile template

[marton_1]

Interesting thread but for me the whole concept is badly flawed.
Dumbing down my website so it fits the screen on a phone is an extreme case of the tail wagging the dog. Of course it is possible to have different mobile content but then I have double the work; maybe more than double while additionally checking everything is synchronised.

I do not want to think about how many hours I have spent trying and implementing different responsive solutions and I have no idea if I get any benefits from these changes.

Myself I thought my site looked much better on a phone before I changed anything but Google classed it as mobile unfriendly. Now it is classed as friendly

[angst]

Well marton_1 that's just the world we live in.
I also will almost always choose the desktop version if given the option while surfing on a mobile device. My legacy template looks just fine to me on a mobile device, but the reality that google is ranking my page down from mobile search is tangible. If you have google analytics set up go look at the percentage of your traffic that is mobile. For me mobile devices make up 37% of my total traffic even with my lower ranking on mobile searches. In google webmaster tools there are alerts for heaps of errors for mobile devices (font size and spacing mostly) so I am rushing to get Responsive Scheffield Blue deployed as fast as possible. I am having some struggles with getting the spacing sorted out but I can recall having to go through that back in the day setting up my legacy template as well.

[marton_1]

Well marton_1 that's just the world we live in.
I also will almost always choose the desktop version if given the option while surfing on a mobile device. My legacy template looks just fine to me on a mobile device, but the reality that google is ranking my page down from mobile search is tangible. If you have google analytics set up go look at the percentage of your traffic that is mobile. For me mobile devices make up 37% of my total traffic even with my lower ranking on mobile searches. In google webmaster tools there are alerts for heaps of errors for mobile devices (font size and spacing mostly) so I am rushing to get Responsive Scheffield Blue deployed as fast as possible. I am having some struggles with getting the spacing sorted out but I can recall having to go through that back in the day setting up my legacy template as well.

Sad but true.
For the last 30 days I have 25% mobile with 40% bounce, tablets 20% with 44% bounce and the desktop has 36% bounce.
Keep trucking

[delia]

both Jose and I have a separate mobile template with the same base of mobile jQuery. The point is to make it as streamlined as possible and getting rid of unnecessary bells and whistles. You just set it up to automatically divert the customer to it if their screen size is is mobile sized. Passes google mobile friendly test perfectly.

I do totally disagree with Google's requirement of that auto redirect though. As an iPhone user I hate when I get thrown into a mobile version. But Google is doing this for their benefit and not the customers - it makes it easier for them to vet a site.

[rbarbour]

I'm not knocking mobile templates, personally they are annoying to me, I hate all the additional clicks required just to see the product info, I hate that products feel hidden throughout the process of getting to the product info.

jQuery Mobile great but IMO it is extremely bloated and makes every site look the same (with or without changing the colors).

I do like the simplicity of your mobile templates @delia

[delia]

well, thanks, rbarbour! Though bloated, zen cart with mobile jquery is way way faster than the full cart since I've cut out so many extra things. When the day comes that a fancy looking mobile site is a necessity, well, at this point it's all about satisfying google if you need to. I'm a firm believer in function first - a mobile website doesn't have to be fancy to sell. If it's easy to buy on it, that's the most important thing.

Of course, Jose is trying to sell his mobile template just like I am. I personally hate responsive templates for many reasons but chiefly because responsive is mobile first. It leaves sites looking stupid on the desktop. So either a responsive template written specifically for one's site (yo, expensive!!) or else an adaptive type of template like the mobile jQuery solutions. It took me over a month to convert zen cart to mobile jQuery - nearly every template file has changes. No small thing. And all done with conscious thought of what the best end product should be.

[Invizix]

@delia
You SERIOUSLY think that responsive designs make desktop versions of sites look stupid!? Even though that is your personal opinion, good luck in convincing anyone to agree with you because that's simply a false statement on your part and is the oppsite of the purpose of responsive design when utilized properly. You know the phrase, "Time is money"? Well that holds true to Responsive design as well, store owners don't need to spend extra time to muck around with a sperate template when a proper Responsive template does everything on the fly, all while keeping the familiarity customers have been accustom to on the desktop version.

Most of the major brand retailers do not use a seperate "Mobile Template" these days either, the majority are definately utilizing the Responsive way of providing mobile content to their customer bases. The whole seperate "mobile template" way of doing things has been around for over a decade now and is a dying horse method to provide mobile users a decent customer experience.

[delia]

not going to argue with anyone about this.

[Invizix]

not going to argue with anyone about this.

No argument intended, but the truth is the truth.

The whole Zentric Ideals [What's best for Zen Cart] crap from the overall Zen Cart community is what is not only holding back Zen Cart from modernizing but also one of the reasons for driving store owners away to more "with the times" carts, be it open source, paid for or custom. It seriously feels sometimes like the whole Zen Cart community is stuck in the past, because the reality of it is that todays Web 2.0 ecommerce world is a helluva lot different than is was even just 2-3 years ago.

The seperate mobile templates you and Jose are selling is just showing Zen Cart's age even more because as I said the whole seperate site for mobile thing is an ideal that is over a decade old now and is indeed a dying horse. Period.

I'm not new to Zen Cart by any stretch of the imagination, i've been using Zen Cart since 2004 and it's still my favorite shopping cart solution but it just saddens me how far behind it's gotten especially in the "out of the box" experience feel and how far behind the times most of the Zen Cart community logic is as well.

[delia]

function before form - as an ecommerce specialist (not just zen cart), zen cart fills the bill. Done right it sells!