The case for/against mobile layouts from an indie web perspective

[milo]

This has been a great discussion with lots of points of view.

I have two website that I manage, one for my business and my personal website.

The business site is "optimized" for mobile I suppose haha. I made sure the resolution fits on a mobile screen but that's really the extent of it. It's enough that anyone who searches google for us can load the site up, get relevant info and move on. I felt it was important to make sure that site is mobile friendly since I'm casting a wider net and actually want a lot of people to see it.

My personal site however... I literally don't care haha. I built it as a space for me to both host my creative efforts and to practice my HTML. I honestly don't have the chops to make sure my site looks good on all possible platforms so I just don't care. I do check a few different computers to see how it looks in different browsers, but as far as mobile, I agree with the folks in this thread that browsing the Internet on mobile can lead to a form of addiction and I've been, personally, moving away from using the Internet on my phone, so I design my site with computers in mind. I have thought about adding a splash page saying as much.

[KiwiMeowo]

Personally, I always make my website mobile-friendly.

For one, I often use my phone, and sometimes I like to view my site on my phone to look back at my memories, or check something I need to remember.

Also, there are many people who might have phones but not computers, I want to try to make my website accessible so that more people get to view and enjoy what I make.

Moreover, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, when I see something look off after I change the window size a bit, there will be an itch in my brain screaming at me until I fix it.

Lastly (most important thing), I feel like planning the designs for different window sizes can be a way to practice my creativity. There is a page in my site that shows a note book in the usual computer display, but when you view it in mobile (or shrink the browser window), it will become a pocket ring notepad instead. It is perhaps my favourite page design in my site.

[starbreaker]

I was having a thought on this- Mobile-first design is pretty much the standard in webdev (it was my philosophy, too, when I began working on my site), but I'm curious to hear anyone's rationale on why they might not do this. I'm debating how accessible to mobile I want to make some of my future, more artsy, projects, and I'd like to explain why.

The older I've gotten the more minimialist (and possibly brutalist) my approach to design on my personal website has become. I don't do mobile first, but terminal first. My view is that if somebody can't read my website in lynx on some ancient computer that can't handle Firefox or Chrome, then that's a failure on my part.

I hold this view because I have what might be called a libertarian view of web design: it's not my job or my place to tell other people how to access the internet, or my website. (Corporations and AIs aren't people, so I reserve the right to tell them what to do.)

So, if somebody wants to access my website on a smartphone, or has no other option but to use a phone (or lynx on a VT-100 terminal), that's their business. My business is to make sure they can. And if somebody has a real computer, then I'll use progressive enhancement to make the experience a little nicer.

But web pages are responsive and accessible by default. My job, when designing my website, is to not break functionality that I get for free. In my opinion, any device capable of displaying Unicode text should be able to display my website. Even if it's a smartphone, and even if smartphones are an inherently toxic technology.

[JINSBEK]

The notion of "not wanting to be part of the problem" is an interesting one. Because I do not think the average static website causes Internet addiction...

Indie Web is not the one pushing notifications, implementing endless scrolling, taking advantage of the psychology of gambling, or funding research teams to capture increasingly young children so as to not lose generations of users to other attention-competitors. Basically, I'm not being evil with my website design in any way, and I don't see viewport responsiveness as an inherently addictive design decision. It's everyone else's decision to put a fucking smartphone in their 12-year-old's hands instead of actually raising their kid to be a good human being, I don't take responsibility for anyone else's stupidity when I'm not the one actively preying on kids or even aiming at adults with psychological hijacking tactics. If somebody has a problem with smartphone addiction, they can deal with it like an adult, or they can have mommy and daddy step in and ask them to take away the device. And I doubt those kids who are constantly jacked in to TikTok are the ones reading any of my personal websites, ever.

I make my main art website Mobile-friendly just because I know some people might be viewing my art and articles or whatever on their smartphone. I don't make any judgement on whether that usage is healthy or not because I don't control anyone else's psychology (or at least, I haven't made an attempt to, see above). And if anything I like to flex on the big "corporate" websites with boring-ass website designs by having an attractive Mobile-friendly website. Yes, I like dunking on other people. That's why my main art website is Mobile-friendly. Because I want to make a glossy magazine available on a smartphone and make Polygon look like ass.

My other websites I largely don't care because there's no way my design intent for the website would ever look good on a depression rectangle.

[Paprika]

I made a specific page on my website that leads people to a page saying the website isn't made to be browsed on mobile but on computer. A couple of friends complained about it saying that I'm not making it available everywhere.

Whic is the point. Everyone is already stuck on their mobile phones and looking at big GAFAM websites and I want people to drop their phones so my website is made for this. It's easier (at least for me) to stop being on a computer rather than having a notification-machine in your pocket.

So yeah, I made it against mobile devices because I want people to have a life outside their computer. Most of the indie web is best seen on a computer screen where everything isn't squeezed to bits in a tall rectangle so I don't have any issue with this. Seeing my friends reactions make me think about why we are always wanting everything right here, right now.

It might sound silly but I won't change a thing because for me the computer experience is more important than being a people pleaser and make my website available to all screens anywhere on the planet. I know it's not the best behavior regarding the situation but I don't think everyone should cater to everyone.

It's what internet is about for me. Freedom. If I don't want a mobile-compatible website then, I'm free to do so. I'm not here for views, likes or whatever attention-span is called these days. It's a place made for being seen on a computer screen and it will wtay like this. There's other websites that are available for phones. No one's gonna die if they can't access my website on their I-pad, there's no vital informations or anything valuable.

Computer screen it is.

[Rosaria Delacroix]

I don't really put too much thought into it- I do like to look at my site on my phone sometimes, since I like to reread over my own writing- mostly to smile at the little play-by-post tabletop roleplay game shrine I've made and have been working on for a campaign with friends, or thumb through the blogging area set aside for updates on my novel I've been neglecting- and I'm often on my phone, especially if I leave the house for whatever reason.

Responsive templates are quite easily come by in the community, thankfully, and so it's just as easy for me to snag one of those and doll it up a little in pink as it would be to not do so. I'm not super fussy about making sure everything is perfectly contained or optimized: as long as it's possible to tap around and possibly zoom in slightly if need be, then I don't mind.

My site is made with the intention it would be viewed on a computer, because that's how I typically read and write longer form content, but it should be generally useable to mobile users. I have a rather silly combination of a small laptop and a huge phone, so trying to make it sized perfectly is a bit of a moot task for me: as long as it isn't squished teeny tiny in a container box the size of my thumb, and I can move around it okay enough, that's about as much effort as I'm willing to expend.

My site is mostly for me, and my own future reference, or just to have a space to babble on, and living with limited energy and capacity means I have to decide on compromises quite often: so focusing on the desktop presentation at the expense of the mobile one, while still making some efforts towards the mobile experience by choosing responsive templates is one I've knowingly made to save more focus for the actual writing and such that goes onto it.