Do you visit Village 14 on your smart phone or pad?
After a week or so of tweaking the Village 14 mobile site, we’d appreciate your feedback. Let us know if you find it easier or harder to read, load, browse comments and especially for those of you who post comments from your phone, please tell us how that worked out as well.
Thanks.
P.S. If you recently switched from the new site view to the more traditional view, you’ll have to switch back at the bottom of the page, but don’t worry you can switch back again if you still don’t like it.
The mobile site is fine, but the traditional site is such a simple and “clean” design that it works well for me on my phone and I am likely to stick with it. Although the mobile site is a little more readable, that is offset by having all the articles truncated.
Why did you get rid of the CAPTCHA code?
I was wondering that about Captcha, too. But it was a pain to type on iPhone.
I like that “Recent Comments” is now on dropdown menu — I don’t think it was before? But why not add “Tags” to dropdown as well?
And I think I’d prefer “Recent Comments” sorted newest to oldest, intermingled, as it’s been on the full website, rather than sorted by thread, which requires more scrolling if you’re a frequent checker.
I would like to have a chip implanted in my head so I didn’t even have to turn on my smartphone to enjoy the Village 14 blog. Are you able to do that yet?
All seriousness aside, there are some tradeoffs between ease of use and simplicity, as Julia Malakie points out, that can cut both ways. I too prefer the recent comments intermingled rather than by topic, for the same reason I love going to a bookstore and browsing. I usually end up buying something I never would have been looking for.
“Prefer comments intermingled” – me too
Another vote for most recent comments in chronological order, not by thread.
I got rid of the CAPTCHA because we have a different plugin for spam that was better. And it’s a pain on mobile as well.
I made a recent comments page because we lost the right rail on mobile.
Good news is the comments can be easily configured to your liking, it was just something new to try.
Also the mobile platform can be set to be just on phones, as opposed to tablets that may be fine for the desktop version.
Would you like me to un-group the comments?
Cool facts:
Users of V14 by device:
1. Desktop: 72%
2. Mobile: 18%
3. Tablet: 9%
Mobile devices:
1. iPhone: 47%
2. iPad: 30%
3. Other: 23%
I’m usually using my iPad but even when I’m using my iPhone I prefer the traditional site. I like the right rail so I’m not a fan of having the articles truncated. Great to not have to deal with the CAPTCHA.
I’ve un-grouped the comments. Now the are in order, the most recent at the top.
What do you guys think?
I agree with Bruce. The existing website works pretty well on tablet. I prefer the in-line content flow over truncated navigation scheme to read articles. The mobile template attempts to do both, which doesn’t really work for me. I think the trendy infinite scrolling is the way to go.
It would be great if one template could satisfy both desktop and mobile. Perhaps a new wp template with just a bit more “responsive” design would be sufficient, also less headache for the webmaster?
I like the new mobile site and think it’s great to have a choice between using it or the main website. I find the desktop site too cluttered to read easily on my phone, though it’s perfect for larger screens. I could see toggling between the two on occasion, but my middle-aged eyes definitely prefer the more minimal mobile site for the tiny phone screen.
@Webmaster – I just switched back to the mobile interface on my phone. I like it now,that the comments are ungrouped.
I like this version of the mobile site on my phone. One observation/question – if you switch to the “Recent Comments” view and scroll to the bottom you get to a “Leave a Comment” box. Where would that comment end up?
I don’t have the mobil version, but like not having a Capcha code.
Comments on the recent comments page will end up at the bottom of that page.
I’ve added an icon on the header that will make it easy for folks to switch to the desktop version.
In case they don’t know they can scroll down to the bottom right to exit.