Sequart for Mobile

If you browse the web on your smartphone, Sequart.org now has a mobile-optimized version of the site.

The mobile version removes the sidebar and modifies features to make them fit on a narrower page. Unlike a lot of mobile sites, all features of the regular site are retained (right down to the “related content” feature at the bottom of articles).

Knowing that many mobile devices have limited bandwidth, we’ve also attempted to ensure that the mobile site is delivered as quickly as possible. In tests, it’s considerably faster than the standard site.

There isn’t a separate URL for the mobile version, and we don’t use any redirects. If you access Sequart.org on an iPhone, Android device, Blackberry, or Palm device, you should simply be delivered the mobile version automatically. (Most tablet devices should remain unaffected, and we think the standard website looks nice on them.)

Many mobile sites feature an option to switch to a “classic” view. That’s offered as a workaround, letting visitors have access to the full site’s full range of features, because the mobile version is stripped-down. We don’t have such an option because we don’t believe it’s necessary, in our case.

Of course, no mobile version of a website is perfect. Ours is about the width of my own smartphone when turned on its side. That’s still about twice the width of the phone when upright. Still, twice is much better than three times, making things much more readable and requiring far less zooming.

Also, touch screens aren’t friendly to drop-down navigation, a feature we use on the standard site that’s retained on the mobile version. We’re not sure how much of a problem that is or isn’t for our mobile visitors, but it’s something we’ll consider changing if people ask for it. In the meantime, it’s not a new problem or one unique to our site, and we feel the mobile version is still a much-improved experience for Sequart’s mobile readers.

We’ve embraced digital as a book publisher. Now we’re embracing mobile as a website.

CBR, Bleeding Cool, Comics Alliance, and Newsarama don’t have mobile sites. But Sequart does.

So pull out your smartphone and start browsing!

And when you’re through, please share your feedback in the comments here! We want to read your thoughts, whether positive or negative, and they represent invaluable information to us. Thanks in advance!