I wear my jeans below my, ahem, waist. It’s easier but it isn’t my best presentation. When I want to improve how I present myself, I put on a suit with braces. My suits are tailored to present me in the best manner possible and braces keep my trousers where they’re supposed to be worn.
Your e-commerce site presents you and your business to your shoppers. Until recently, most e-commerce design only had to accommodate different resolutions and different browsers for the desktop/notebook . M-commerce is a reality now. If your shoppers are using mobile devices then your site needs mobile versions that are tailored for those tiny browsers.
Now there’s a new challenge. I read Dell Streak Brings Tablet Computing Down the Mountain on E-Commerce Times this morning. Dell’s Streak, Apple’s iPad, Asus’s Eee; tablets are here and they’re a new browser frontier with new resolutions, and probably, new browser quirks to accommodate.
Designing for more browser flavors increases your site’s complexity and workload. Where do you start and which browsers are more important for your site and audience? The clues are in three places:
- your web server visitor logs,
- your competitor’s sites,
- your shoppers.
Your web server logs will tell you which browsers you’re serving. If your shoppers are using browsers that your site doesn’t support you are losing potential sales. Look at your competitor’s sites on friends and associates’ smartphones and netbooks. Are they optimized for that particular device? If so, maybe there’s an audience that your aren’t reaching. Finally, talk to your shoppers. They might not be ready to make the purchase on a mobile device but they might be doing their research while they’re waiting for the train, walking down the street, watching TV, etc.
How about you? Are you using your smartphone or netbook (or tablet!) to research or buy? Is your site optimized for m-commerce browsers or are you thinking about diving in? Tell me how you use the smaller display and if you think it impacts your e-commerce site.
Photo credit: Mykl Roventine
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