Mobile First IPVM Launched
Author: John Honovich, Published on Mar 09, 2016The new IPVM is mobile first, built for using IPVM on your phone, replacing our previous bad mobile experience.
We spent the last 3 months rebuilding the IPVM site, all of the reports, discussions, member management, and most of the tools to deliver an outstanding experience for phone and tablet users.
IPVM had 30% of our ~150,000 monthly visits come from mobile devices, even with our previous bad site. We are confident that the new mobile first site will make using IPVM far more enjoyable.
Site Comparisons
The image below compares the 2 old IPVM versions when viewed on a phone compared to how the new IPVM works:
Responsive Design Implemented
Like most websites today, the site uses a responsive design, allowing it to gracefully adapt to different screen resolutions and devices sizes, demonstrated below:
Much Faster Loading
In addition, IPVM is now loading much faster, which should help all users, mobile or desktops. Indeed, we have another 2 loading optimizations steps in queue for later this month.
What Do You Think?
Let us know, especially if you have any questions or ideas for improvements.
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Comments (26)
Looks great and much easier to post comments on mobile.
Looks great John - kudos to all involved!
Why is everything so large now on PC? Maybe worked for mobile but PC version is making me scroll, scroll, scroll....
1, can you post or email me a screenshot of your screen? Have you checked the zoom level of your browser?
Super sharp. Much better mobile experience - especially for comments.
Looks great John.
One thing that seems to be missing that I found useful on the old site was the dropdown list of manufacturers: was a great reference and quick-link to info. Yes, easy enough to search but sometimes having the list prompted searches for info on others. Any chance of this - or even a page showing companies covered by IPVM content - returning?
Richard, good eye! We did remove it as we were first trying to strip things down. We will think about adding it back in. What is being displayed on the side is still a work in progress as we optimize the secondary elements over the next week.
The main thing we need to be careful about with the list is the appearance that companies on the list are endorsed and those not on it are not. That is one reason I have de-emphasized it over the years but we will spend some time thinking about how to display it.
Thanks for the feedback John. Definitely makes sense to strip out as much as possible for a nice, clean new UI. Other stuff can be added back as required.
Hadn't thought of the endorsed angle but that does make sense for anyone fiercely independent.
This was only a minor issue though - worth the trade off for a cleaner UI and much better mobile experience.
Maybe as part of your preferences you can specify which manufacturers and the order you want them to be displayed, or alpha. If you don't list any, the menu doesn't show. This way people need to explicitly select what to display, and there can be a disclaimer there as well.
Good idea: nice to have a personalized list of companies that you're tracking.
"a personalized list of companies that you're tracking."
We do that. See: Company News Monitoring Service and Custom News Alerts
One thing I just noticed is when I'm on the site with my iPad though Safari, the menu bar on the left side of the screen covers up site. I can't get the page to re-size with menu.
Steve, sorry. That's a bug and we have had a few people report it today. We are looking for a fix, it seems to happen on some iPads but not all so we are checking if it is a variance across versions. We'll update when fixed. Thanks.
iOS version is 8.4 on my iPad.
Steve, thanks.
3 minutes ago, we confirmed it is an iOS 8.x issue. So upgrade your iOS, we ain't fixing it.
Kidding :) Hopefully, we will push a fix tonight if not midday tomorrow morning once we determine the difference in iOS 8 (vs 9) causing this.
Minor annoyance...
I liked that the IPVM logo was always at the top for easy access to the home page. Now, if you scroll down, the menu hides. You have to scroll up to see it.
Good eye on the nav bar. That is a change. If you scroll up just for a moment, it reappears even without going all the way up.
That was a change I was somewhat concerned about, so we will think through it some more.
Is anything iOS considered mobile?
Great work! Much appreciated here!
Seemingly related to this change is a (partially?) non-functioning quote feature. For example, when I posted this yesterday:
...the first and third paragraphs were quoted, but don't show as quoted. I even edited to ensure the paragraphs were set as quoted. Yet "U2's" reply to me today appears to quote properly.
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On a separate note, the video autoplay has to go. Every time I go to the article above this voice starts coming out of my speakers and I have to scroll endlessly to find the video and pause it. Oof... and it keeps on auto-playing the next video...
The video autoplay is from a third party video embedded. I just removed it.
As for the quotes, it is on the list to be fixed today. Thanks.
Yet "U2's" reply to me today appears to quote properly.
I've been using the indent and italicize buttons as a work around.
Thank you for the return of the "show newest first" button. I missed it
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