In Ethan Marcotte’s article “Responsive Web Design,” he sheds light on how the world of web browsing is rapidly changing. Marcotte said mobile browsing is expected to outpace desktop-based access within three to five years. The importance of tailoring the virtual experience on a viewers mobile device is becoming more and more essential in this technology driven world. Media queries allow coders to make these ‘one size fits all’ web designs, which in turn, make web pages look great not only on desktops, but on different mobile devices.
The second article “Introduction to CSS Media Queries,” by Arpan Dhandhania, goes into greater depth about using media queries in order to cater to the different web browsing devices. While CSS looks at what device it is being browsed on, media queries look at what capabilities the device has. Height/width of the device, height/width of the browser, screen resolution, and orientation of the device are the most important elements to concentrate on in media queries. You have to make sure that the browser you intent to display your webpage on is compatible with media queries though.
“The Pros and Cons of Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile Website vs. Native App” by Armen Ghazarian has a title that is pretty self explanatory. This article takes time to point out which tactic will work better for your web page based on what you’re trying to achieve with it. With responsive web design you have a single webpage/URL so its cheaper and easier to manage, but you have to worry about outdated web browsers that aren’t compatible with responsive designs. If you go with a mobile websites you’ll be updating and paying for two sites, but the speed and user experience greatly increases. Native apps are the most expensive and needy route to take, but the speed and possibilities of what you can do with your content are well worth the time and money.
In the end I think I would rather just pay for a mobile website along with my original URL. I think it would be super expensive and hard to market an app. The only apps I download are social media, music, and games.. if I need to quickly search something I just google it.
In the article it mentions that mobile browsing will become more prominent than desktop access. In the article it suggests this will happen within three to five years, but I think it could be sooner. Most people today carry their phones with them at all times of the day. I know personally, it is always in my hand, by my side, or within a reaching distance throughout the day. If someone wants to browse the internet, their phone is usually right there and is more convenient that finding the nearest desktop computer. This is why I find that responsive web design is important. Sooner than later, most web browsing will be done through mobile devices.
I think that for your third section, where you say you would want a mobile site url too, I wouldn’t. But I think that it’s good that we have that choice between options, and that’s whats good about learning how to do both!