Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/850474
30 FEDA News & Views pletely separate entity from the desktop version. That means online customers are directed to one of two sites, depending on their point of entry. And, it also could mean double work in the form of updates and optimization—something advocates of responsive design point to as a con. Having worked with both, Myers is one the fence. "It's more about fi nding the right fi t for your company," he says. "When I was at Restaurant Equippers, they were using a third-party ecommerce and content management system that did not have a decent built-in mobile offering, so we had to use a third-party product. In doing that, our only option was to do an M-Site because you have to be able to code things respon- sively at the core, which was not possible with the ecommerce service provider." As for the pros, M-Sites allow companies to craft the experi- ence for mobile in a very specifi c way, in terms of screen size, content, readability, speed, etc. "You're not leaving anything to chance because you're taking them to a mobile experience that you're designing—and that's good," says Myers. "The downside is that you may have to man two sites, depending on what kind of content management system you're using or software you have for your ecommerce behind the scenes. If you make an update to your regular site, is that going to automatically carry over to the mobile website? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So if you change the banner add on your Changing the Way You Cook since 1990 800.988.8103 360.650.1111 woodstone-corp.com STONE HEARTH & SPECIALTY Commercial Cooking Equipment Discover why OVER 14,000 OVENS, rotisseries, charbroilers, tandoors, and planchas have been SOLD IN 80+ COUNTRIES worldwide. Made in the USA. Mobile vs. Desktop continued website or the homepage image, you may have to do it in two spots. I fi nd that to be more common than not." With responsive design, on the other hand, there's only one website to manage because it's comprised of web pages that instinctively respond to the screen size and orientation of multiple devices—thanks to coding on the back end. "No matter what size your viewport is it's going to change to accommodate the imagery, the texts, the links—everything. And because it's built into the programming of the site, if you make a change to the website, it's immediately refl ected on mobile," says Myers. "Responsive is getting all of the press right now but, hon- estly, I don't think you can go wrong with either one," he says. "In terms of functionality, either will do the job but there are going to be some tradeoffs. On a mobile site, some things are going to look better on a phone than on a tablet and vice versa because it's one experience. Whereas with responsive design, what's displayed on a tablet will be much closer to what's displayed on a desktop. It's just much more tailored to the specifi c device. The downside is that it's more diffi cult to execute. It's defi nitely not something that a lot of program- mers have been doing for a long time and are well versed in. So, they do have to kind of learn some new skill sets to do it, but it's not insurmountable." Making the Conversion In terms of time commitment, it took the team at Restaurant Equippers two months to complete its mobile site with the help of a third party. As for the level of diffi culty, Myers gives it a ranking of four on a 10-point scale—or far from intimidating. Wasserstrom was a different animal. "We may as well have been building a new website from scratch because that's essentially what we did," says the ecommerce head of the yearlong endeavor. "The responsive design was just built into that project; it wasn't a separate part of it. Overall, I would say it was a seven or an eight because the process was a little bit harder but the benefi ts defi nitely outweigh the pain in terms of getting us from Point A to Point B." The good news for Wasserstrom is the same also can be said for the increasing number of customers fl ocking to its site on mobile devices—and making a purchase. "Conversion rate is another factor that we look at very closely," says Myers. "Are we actually converting the people that visit our website into customers? Even on the old web- site, you could pinch and zoom and click and drag and make a purchase. You could get through it, but you had to be very dedicated and we certainly didn't make it easy. Since we've improved the user experience, that conversion rate has improved. It's not quite at the level of the desktop, which we don't expect. We have a lot of old school folks who are using older technology to place their orders. It's just what they're comfortable with and that's fi ne. We don't want to fi ght that; we just want to be there. We want to be wherever they are on whatever platform they're using."