Carol pointed me to the Screenfly tools on QuirkTools, which allows you to preview any Web site as it appears on various devices, including Android and Apple smartphones and tablets, desktop computers, and televisions. To try this out, try comparing our congregation’s main Web site with our religious education blog; I just updated our congregation’s religious education blog with a “mobile-first” responsive Web design, while the main Web site does not have a responsive design, and there’s a big difference in the way each appears on phones and tablets.
(1) First, open the Screenfly tool in a new window by clicking here.
(2) Next, enter the following URL, and try viewing it as desktop, mobile, tablet, and television:
http://paloaltocre.wordpress.com
(3) Now enter the following URL, and notice how it responds differently to a desktop, mobile, tablet, and television, displaying legibly (and differently) on each):
Isn’t QuirkTools’s Screenfly great fun?
There’s a striking difference between my two blogs, which are both on WordPress but use different themes; one looks great on my mobile, the other one is virtually unreadable because it doesn’t change dimension to fit the different screen. So how does one identify in advance whether a design will work well on a mobile?
The term for this is “responsive.” I’m tonight switching a client’s Web site from the WordPress theme framework U-Design to Canvas.