Mobile vs Desktop, Web Design

Today rather then showing off the stuff I make in e-Comm, I'm gonna talk about the trends of desktops users vs mobile users. On the onwravens.net website in particular, there are giant shifts in trends that have appeared after a few years. The data was collected from August 21 to March 12 each school year for the past 3 school years. Specifically, compared to the total amount of sessions the number of desktop sessions went from 79% in 2013 to 56% this year. Compareatively, the number of mobile users went from 14% to 35%. Tablets a little less so, going from 5% to 8%. It can be inferred that by the time next year rolls around, the number of users for desktop and PC will be very close or even the same. Mobile users are definitely on the rise though, that much can't be refuted.

A bounce rate for a website is when the user viewing the website leaves after the first page, without going to any links or anything.On the school website, over the past 3 years the bounce rate has slowly gone up, going from 46.87% in 2013 to 47.15% this year. Mobile devices haven't shown much of  a trend in relation to the bounce rate, but the desktop trend is very clear; 46.12% to 41.53%. Tablets too, have a clear trend, but in the opposite direction: 39.25% to 47.56%. The average session durations, as can be expected, lower each year for mobile users. Desktop and tablet users don't have a pattern in relation, but mobile users went from having an average session of 1 minute 45 seconds in 2013 to 1 minute 28 seconds this year. This very clearly shows that websites need to have more focus on having a fast loading website for their mobile users, and since mobile users are there for only a minute and tablet users tend to leave before you can really load anything cool, websites need to have the information to give to people as fast as possible. For instance, the pages people look for most should be very prominent. For instance, on the onwravens.net website people likely will look for directions, schedule, or contact information.

When comparing the USA's web trends to ours, I found that more americans use mobile services to browse the internet rather then with a desktop. According to my sources more people are buying mobile devices, less people are buying computers, and in general far more people are now using the internet on their mobile device then the computer. The school website shows almost the exact same trend, albeit a little less extreme.

In the end, responsive web design is becoming more important then ever with more and more people moving from desktop to mobile or getting mobile for the first time.

Sources: http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/28/technology/mobile/mobile-apps-internet/ , http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/in-the-us-time-spent-with-mobile-apps-now-exceeds-the-desktop-web-41153/ ,  http://www.census.gov/history/pdf/2013computeruse.pdf