Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I’ve been playing around with Balsamiq, trying to play with different ways to play with a mobile site. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from everywhere. I particularly love The Boston Globe responsive redesign.

I was lucky enough to go to ONA this year and listen to Ethan Marcotte talk about what responsive redesign actually is. The reason I’ve gone with a mobile site as opposed to an App is that it simply isn’t feasible for the majority of news organizations to create an app that works with every single tablet and smartphone out there. I love some of the customizations you can do on an app, but for me it’s simply a matter of resources.

The thing that blew me away about Marcotte’s presentation is that almost nothing is defined by pixels. Every section is basically defined in percentages. But obviously, you can’t just resize content for a desktop and a smartphone and expect good results. That’s why Marcotte detects the pixel width (not the device) of your screen, whatever you’re on, and displays content accordingly. There aren’t 10 different designs for the 10 different devices, there are maybe three. He sets the breaking points for each design by pixel. If you want to read more about what he’s done with the Boston Globe, check it out on his blog.

Read more...