A new responsive site for Rogers owned Macleans Magazine has teething problems
By Stephen Pate – j-Source reports that “Maclean’s website gets responsive design makeover”.
“Maclean’s redesigned website has a new tile-based responsive design,” reports Tamara Baluja, Associate Editor. “The new website—which now automatically configures its size depending on whether the viewer is on a desktop, smartphone or tablet—has an easier navigation, a cleaner look and larger photographs.”
The desktop website for Macleans.ca does sport a new image but the Mobile site needs serious work to come up to speed. Macleans.ca loads slowly on an iPhone or Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone. The formatting is not responsive or at least needs tweaking to work on smartphones under 5″. For example, the featured image for the story is so large, you don’t see the headline until you scroll down. The good news is the desktop site has a mobile feel with clean graphics, text and layout.
To test my casual experience, I ran the Google PageSpeed Insights which revealed a dismal performance of 17 out of 100. The page failed the desktop test. For a comparison, NJN Network gets a 70 out of 100 on Mobile and 83 out of 100 on Desktop response. The Toronto Star gets 60/100 on Mobile and 50/100 on Desktop.
Macleans.ca fails the Google PageSpeed Insight test
To test the page, I also ran the Web Page Performance Test for macleans.ca on Webpagetest.org, where it reported a dismal 18 second load time, with a first view of 16 seconds.
NJN Network PageSpeed Insights Mobile and Desktop
NJN Network relies on industry standard WordPress.org to publish, along with a WPTouch from mobile developer BraveNewCode. That looks after most of the technical issues, leaving me to tweak content and images. I’d like to be running over 80/100 on Mobile and we will get there.
The whole industry is struggling with the rapid move to mobile technology. Two years ago everyone was encouraged to develop an app. However, the cost and effort to develop and maintain apps for Apple, Android, Windows on various screen sizes is a daunting task for largest and most technically advanced companies. Even if your app does nail all the issues, the operating systems and device features are changing annually across the 3 mobile OSs.
Personally, I’d rather use sites that are HTML5 compliant. They tend to be more responsive to various operating systems, browsers and screen sizes.
Follow me on Twitter at @sdpate or on Facebook at NJN Network and OyeTimes.
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