Topretirements Gets Mobile Friendly
Category: General Retirement Issues
February 1 Update: Since we published this post more of the Topretirements site has gone mobile friendly. The City Reviews, over 1000 of them, are now much easier to view on your mobile. Please also check out our 2nd video, which is a quick one on “How to Get Started Finding the Best Communities at Topretirements”
January 3, 2016 — If you are viewing Topretirements on a tablet like an Ipad or a smartphone, there is a different look from you would have seen a few days ago. The world is moving more and more to mobile phones and ipads, and Topretirements.com is trying to meet that demand. To that end we are pleased to announce that after a long and demanding upgrade process, our site is now much easier to use and better looking on the small screen.
Stats by device type
The trend is pretty clear – Internet users are moving from desktop computers to tablets and mobile phones. In the last 6 months of 2015 some 55% of Topretirements visitors were on desktops, a decline of 4 percentage points from the same period in 2014. Tablet users were essentially unchanged, representing 24% of visitors. The decline in 2015 desktop visitors was made up by smart phone/mobile users, who rose to 21% of our audience, up from 17% in 2014. The trend toward more mobile users is expected to continue.
What Topretirements looks like on a Mobile Phone – Youtube Demonstration
Click the Play arrow to view a short demo, or use the link to see it Full Screen.
Easier to navigate
Previously if you came to this site using a mobile device it looked exactly like it does on your big desktop computer – except everything is a lot smaller. The problem with that is obvious; it is very hard to read, and clicking on links to navigate through the site is difficult. The site’s appearance on a tablet was not too different from a desktop.
Here are 2 comparison screen shots (basically this explains what you saw in the video):
Notice that in the Desktop version there are 3 columns: narrow columns are on the left and right, and a wider column in the center. If you change the size of your desktop screen to make it smaller you will see the columns change: eventually both side columns get dropped off (actually they are pushed to the bottom). Because of its small size, on your mobile (smartphone) screen there is only one column shown.
Hamburger anyone?
One tip that some folks might not know – the use of the so called “hamburger”, a term used by web folks to describe the space-saving icon used for expanding/contracting a menu.
.
A hamburger is the name for the (very small) 3 horizontal lines in the upper right column of this screen shot. If you click on it on the actual website, the expanded menu shown below will open up so you can navigate to different sections around the site.
If you click on it again, the menu will go away.
More to come
The change to our mobile friendly Home page was a big second step (our Blog was converted earlier). Most other pages are now more mobile friendly (the hamburger will show up when you make the screen as small as on a mobile), but they still will not compress to a single column. That will come in the next few months. We hope our mobile users will notice the difference. But the good news for everyone, no matter what type of device you use, is that this was such a challenging process that virtually all of the web code on Topretirements had to be re-written in a more powerful, reliable way. That should mean that the site will run faster and with fewer errors.
Suggestions? Please share any reactions or ideas for future improvements in the Comments section below.
Comments on "Topretirements Gets Mobile Friendly"
Barbara Falck says:
I really enjoy reading the different topics and comments on Top Retirements. The start of New Year 2016 is the perfect time for me to say thanks for all the time and efforts invested to maintain and improve this site on behalf of all of us who enjoy reading it. Your work is greatly appreciated! :)
Barbara
ella says:
Thanks for all your hard work, John and staff. We appreciate it, you, and this blog! A late Happy 2016 all!
Admin says:
Thank you Barbara and Ella for your kind words. It makes us happy that so many people find our site useful!
Bruce Lustif says:
Your mobile site needs some formatting work. I am on an iPhone 6S Plus and notice some problems with the formatting. Also, the "Website" field on this page treats the input as text and not a URL. What I mean is that the T in topretirements becomes capitalized and spaces are automatically added between the period and the com because the field assumes text. Check it out for yourself. This is an easy fix.
Admin says:
Thank you for your input, we realize we still have much formatting to be done and you will see many updates in the coming weeks.
Caps says:
Thanks so much for such a helpful website. We find the posts most interesting.
We are wondering if it would possible to get a reminder text, or a number count reminder message or email, if there is a new message on a blog which we have previously posted on.
I'm not a computer programmer, so I'm not aware how difficult such an addition may propose. A few sites I have blogged to, did have that feature, and I thought it was quite helpful.
Thanks again.
Dean-Ross Schessler says:
Don't know if you are just using the term iPhone, like some people use Kleenex or Puffs to generically mean all facial tissue, as a reference to all cell phones or not. I can't help but wonder if you know that while iPhone sales increase yearly, it's only because all cell sales are increasing yearly. The ironic thing is the ratio of all Android phone sales to all iPhone sales is now 4:1 and before the end of this year is project to be 5:1. When I first bought an iPhone my children teased me about waiting so long to abandon my flip phone. I have only had 3 cell phones since December of 1993 when I got my first one. My reluctance to change is not based on the cost of the phone, all though that's a small factor, but on the damned learning curve of getting used to the new beast. When it came time for me to get this last phone, I solicited thoughts/opinions from my five sons who I've inadvertently made more intelligent than I am, most especially about the rapidly changing world of electronics. I purchased an Android smartphone and it is very smart, or at least smarter than I am. I almost dropped back to a "dumb" phone, but got berated out of the option. (I can tell you that if I live long enough to have to make this transition one more time, I am going to quietly coast over to the AARP Consumer Cellular percentage off deal and just get a "regular" phone without telling anyone until is a done deal.) Five lectures from chip-off-the-block, opinionated, tech-savvy, polite and respectful know-it-alls enlightened me to the fact Google's Android platform is slowly winning the game over Apple's platform, not only in phones, but in tablets, in applications related to TV, use in automobiles, etc., etc. The buys said cause I keep my phone over ten years, I had to go Android or I would be sorry as Android continues is slow domination. I was told people are still blindly and aimlessly building apps and website focused on Apple. It will be interesting to hear what kind of feedback I get from the boys who have all become nosy about the positive comments I've made about really liking this site. While my children are all greater than half my age, none are close to retirement age, but I've commanded/demanded in a fatherly-style that they begin thinking and talking retirement now, so as to not be in a scramble/scurry position I kind of found myself in making the transition to the supposed "golden years" where I've found about the only thing that is really golden is my urine. [NOTE: And if any of you boys are reading this, I still hate those damn text messages, so don't think you can send them again!]
Admin says:
Please also check out our 2nd video, which is a quick one on "How to Get Started Finding the Best Communities at Topretirements" https://youtu.be/MK7d0Dd1rtw