Standalone mobile website Vs responsive design

What is the sole objective of a 20th century modern website? Primarily to generate as much traffic to the site and then to sustain that volume and maximize profits generated out of advertisement revenues. Much of that objective is achieved through slick designing, unique offering of product and services through the site and innovative marketing. 

(pic coutesey: business2community.com)

However, with the ever increasing competition, where it is becoming difficult to differentiate the services of one stakeholder from another; the success, popularity and traffic on a website has it's dependency on another dimension- "the amount of time a person spends on site". This means to make your online presence available on every possible media (i.e. PC,MAC,mobile platforms like cell phone ,PDA etc). The best example of which is GOOGLE – a search engine which constantly made its customers hook on through various mediums and in turn hogged the largest share of internet time and access to a vast repository of knowledge of human internet behavior.

This is precisely where a web site designer is faced with the biggest dilemma of building a dedicated website catering to a mobile platform only or to build a more generic, single point access site which is responsive enough to cater to any platform (laptop, tablet, or mobile).

There is a divided opinion that is floating amidst internet aficionados in favor of either of the methodologies .The decision however, is not based out of any single thumb rule but on a lot of interdependent aspects.

The Core Need:

Identifying the core need of a business is the most important factor which in turn directs in embarking upon a definite approach of website design. The process of identification of such needs can be based on following parameters:

a. Purpose:
- Is the site for content publication (blogs, travel guides, Music archives,e-book archives)
- Is the site providing a definite service (hotel booking, travel ticket booking, search engine)
- Is the site for promotion and advertising only giving static information about a certain product, shop, service.

b.Type of content:
Static content like wallpapers, music, e-books, blogs, online publications etc. can be published across platforms by way of a responsive design approach as a dedicated mobile site might not add any specific value to it. However, websites which are popular for delivering a specialized form of service like internet banking ,ticket booking, hotel booking etc. may find increased value addition for their customers through dedicated mobile versions of these sites - if they are able to enrich their user experience by making optimized use of navigation, swipe gestures, GPS and other device specific capabilities.

c. Target market:

Extensive research on the demography of mobile users should give an insight into whether a dedicated mobile based site is essential or a responsive design approach works Hotel chains, restaurants or even small service providers can hog a majority share of the attention by having dedicated mobile sites highlighting their USP's on the go in a fast and efficient manner. Whereas, large organizations- which typically have many content producers, complex editorial systems and produce large, complex sites- may find it prohibitively expensive and unnecessary to have dedicated mobile sites unless they add any extra value.

d. Degree of Penetration:
 
Many a times, the intention of the business is just to have a wider reach without laying much emphasis on optimization, user experience etc. In such cases, a responsive design approach can accrue some immediate benefits saving the effort of an elaborate analysis that is required for a dedicated mobile site.
 
User Experience/User Bias:

It can be argued that responsive design approach often may not achieve the best of user experience. Vice-versa, a decision to have a dedicated mobile site should only be embarked upon if it promises a better user experience which is fast, intuitive and yet satiates the user with the information he seeks to get.

It is necessary to understand that mobile is a behavior and not a smaller screen resolution and therefore smart navigation, clear fonts, innovative use of real-estate (viewable screen space),context specific information goes a long way towards enhancing the user experience.

Occasionally, however, users attach a certain sentimental value which we can attribute as "User Bias" towards a certain design/layout/presentation that they would not like to part with. ( The simplistic looking Google search page, that has maintained the same form across most platforms is a typical example where users have strongly associated themselves to that "white page single textbox view").In search scenarios a responsive design might prove beneficial .

It is the same "User Bias" that led to the conceptualization of a separate e-paper web site for the "Times of India" which stands out as a classic example of a responsive design approach which was only triggered because of a strong user bias of having a same user experience akin to reading news out of a news paper.

Resource Optimization:

The design approach and methodology for dedicated mobile demands more optimized use of available resources. While a user may have the best of experience viewing a site with rich controls ,flash based interfaces and high resolution pictures on his laptop and computer , the same experience will not hold true if readily migrated to a mobile device through responsive design and therefore use of key resources like bandwidth, processing power, battery on a mobile platform needs to be optimized for best performance.

Cost:

Any business venture that is set out to make profits cannot undermine the cost aspect that goes into building the website infrastructure.
 
While building dedicated websites catering to separate platforms surely helps in isolating the solution based on platforms, it definitely pushes the cost upwards as multiple sites needs to be build and maintained. There is also an element of duplication in this methodology where, change in one site might need a change in other also for consistency and integrity. However, having said that, prices are primarily driven by the complexity of the site design and manpower resources available and they vary across developers and agencies.

Summary /conclusion

The dilemma of mobile websites versus responsive design is always going to remain in the minds of designers and needs to be rationally handled keeping in mind the pros and cons of each approach.

In any case the return on investment is going to be the sole important criterion that is eventually going to drive the decision in favor of one of the approaches.