Business

Lunchtime Links: Go Mobile. But Make Sure it Makes Sense.

Why one nonprofit web developer, when doing its market research, realized responsive wasn't the way to go. Also: leadership lessons from a move.

You may be designing a really great mobile site, but “really great mobile site” doesn’t necessarily mean “responsive design.”

How one nonprofit built its mobile site, and more, in today’s Lunchtime Links:

When responsive isn’t right: Not sure responsive design is the right solution for you? You might find from doing market research that it’s not the way to go. That’s the situation Foraker Labs’ Derek Olson says he faced when deciding how to go mobile with Breastcancer.org. For one thing, users needed different things from the site. “Because of the difficulty of ‘thumb typing’ on a mobile device, a greater percentage of mobile users landed on the home page, where they were dependent on the site’s main navigation,” Olson noted on NTEN. “Desktop users, on the other hand, were more likely to arrive directly at the content they desired by typing a longer search phrase into a search engine.” Ultimately, the organization chose to go with a separate mobile site rather than responsive design. What was your thought process when going mobile?

Let’s take a minute and appreciate how cool it is that social media is a one-stop shop for entertainment, time wasting, and incredibly powerful and ever-emerging marketing and customer communication.

Taking a lesson from a move: Recently, consultant Jamie Notter downsized into a smaller home for his family, and even for someone who knows as much about leadership as Notter does, the process was a struggle. “It is thoroughly exhausting, and as you may have guessed from this blog, I’m a big-picture guy, and moving requires LOTS of details, so I struggled,” he writes. “But I must say I am thrilled to be typing this from my new place.” From the painful process of moving, Notter culled a few leadership lessons worth heeding, which you should check out over this way.

Mixing social with work: There may have been a time when it wasn’t cool to keep a Facebook tab open at work, but that time has passed. MemberClicks’ Sarah Hill, writing for SocialFish, says things have changed significantly in recent years. “Let’s take a minute and appreciate how cool it is that social media is a one-stop shop for entertainment, time wasting, and incredibly powerful and ever-emerging marketing and customer communication,” she writes. “And that it’s an integral part of my (and probably also your) job.” Still, there’s a stigma, but it’s something Hill says organizations need to get past.

How do you mix work and play with social media? Tell us about it in the comments.

 

(iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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