Research Project Artefact 3

The results from my last two artefacts showed that “Responsive Web Design” is better than apps, these results were from the questioner and the testing that I did.

I researched online to find some evidence to support my results, I found some good research supporting my results.

In my research I came across “Mobile Web Apps”, which this is something new for me to explore into.

Responsive web design is better than apps in a lot of ways, responsive web design is one coded website that fits all different kinds of screen sizes, it does not matter what operating system your mobile or tablet is running on because it will work on mobile, tablet and desktop, responsive websites are also SEO friendly.

Some of the advantages of Responsive Web Design are:

– In a Browser (No need to download anything)

–  Single coded website– built once, runs across all devices

–  Renders across any screen size – one can view the internet on 20′′ monitors, 15′′ laptops, 10′′ netbooks, 7′′ tablets, 3′′ smartphones and every size between. It also considers the huge difference in widths and heights, whether the screen is landscape or portrait, and screen resolution.

–  Improves SEO – a single version of the website improves page ranking. Issues have arisen in which having two versions of a site (website and mobile site) impact page ranking.

–  Reduces maintenance cost and effort due to single link.

–  Provides control and flexibility – changes can be made at one centralized place. You do not need to contact multiple vendors to make changes when your mobile site/ mobile application is built by different development companies.

-Ongoing Maintenance – Lower maintenance cost, single version to maintain for the whole website

Some of the disadvantages of Responsive Web Design are:

-It takes more time and cost to design a responsive website than normal website

-User experience – Navigation and layout

Native apps(normal apps) are good and very useful, they are user friendly, very easy to use. But you will need to design each app for different platforms like Apple, Android, Windows and Blackberry.

Some of the advantages of Native Apps are:

-Performance – fast, easy to use

-No need for a browser

Some of the disadvantages of Native Apps are:

-Some apps do not work offline

-More time and cost consuming to make the app for each platform

-Some apps do not work the same on different devices and platforms e.g. a app on apple might be different on the android or one app will work on the iPhone but will not work the same on the iPad.

-Apps need to be updated continuously so that you keep your customers or they will go and there is always another app out there that will do the same.

-Continuously testing the apps to make sure they work across all the platforms and making sure they are free from bugs.

-Putting your app out there is a big challenge to get your app at the top and apple could deny your app when  you submit to apple after you have spent all the time and cost on it

-Apple has very strict rules on apps, if you don’t do what they say your app is out!

"Mobile Web App development is an increasingly popular field of mobile development. Unlike native apps which are downloaded to a device, web apps run in-browser."

"Many mobile users are still unsure about privacy & security issues when downloading apps onto their phones and prefer to browse the web. Developing a web app means that you can provide users with the same content as a native app without them having to download anything."

"Web apps are not covered by Apple & Google’s app store policies and they don’t receive any of your money, so this is an attractive prospect when developing apps as you have more freedom and keep all the profit."

"Many developers have also grown tired of trying to get make their apps visible in the app stores – a feat that is covered on our app courses."

Some of the advantages of Mobile Web Apps are:

-Web Apps run in-browser

-Same features and design as native apps without downloading anything

-No need to put them on the different app stores

-No Google or Apple rules

-No need to try to get you app at the top because it s a web app

-Uses HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript

-Not to much time and cost consuming

Some of the disadvantages of Mobile Web Apps are:

-On android devices there is not much functionality as there is in Apple devises

-Speed could be an issue

-Does not work offline

conclusion

I have found out that Responsive Websites can’t do the same elements as you could with a Native App, when you design and create a Responsive Website you make it for Desktop, Tablet and Smartphones and there are a lot of different screen sizes, so on certain screen sizes, you might lose some content because if you have a lot of information on a desktop website it’s ok but when you view it on a smartphone you might need to lose some content of that because the user will not want to scroll a lot to view the content so then this will be bad for user experiences.

Apps are very hard, very challenging and there is a lot of apps that do the same job and you have to work very hard to make your app popular and there is different app coding for different platforms, as a developer you will need to spend a lot of time to create a good app and the cost is very high, so these things make clients and developers to think again.

I have found out that you can make a “Web App”. Web App is based in browser it’s single coded using HTML5 CSS3 and JavaScript, there is no need to download the app because you just view it using your smartphone browser, its not very hard to create, time and cost are not high.

This research has made me to look into “Web Apps” to find out if they work the same on different browsers such as Safari, Firefox and Chrome etc. I would also test the Web Apps on some friends to see if they like using it and  if they can get around it easy.

“We recommend that you always have a mobile friendly site – whether that is a separate site or a responsive main site. At the minimum, this allows your customers to easily access and browse your site from mobile devices.“

“If you want to offer a different experience to your site then a mobile app is the way forward but as yet there is no clear winner between native and web apps.“

“The design of your website and mobile service should be based on your target audience. Building a site using either approach requires thorough planning and a good understanding of the user’s roadmap through the site on every type of device.”

“Therefore, if you want a solution that’s easy to maintain, makes use of existing skills and that you can control, then Responsive Web Design is the approach for you. If you want a high quality user experience, better performance, faster implementation and seamless transactions, then you should select Mobile Web App for your business.“