Push for Mobile first

[DesignzShop]

BTW  there's nothing wrong with the responsive design of IPB or millions of other websites that use that over mobile first ground up approach,  here's another lesson for you

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-vs-responsive/

https://powerdigitalmarketing.com/blog/responsive-vs-mobile-websites-which-is-best-for-you/#gref

How Should Web Managers Respond To Google’s Mobile First Index?

The “mobile first” index is bad news for businesses that have chosen to adopt a dedicated mobile site rather than responsive website and, as a result, have significantly less content on the mobile version of their website.

It is a development that makes a responsive website look like an even more attractive option.

Whichever route you take, it is important to ensure that you have a fully-functioning mobile version of your site. If you do go down the route of a dedicated mobile version of your website, you will need to make sure that your mobile version is the “primary” version.

Forbes contributor Jason DeMeyers suggests, “Continue prioritizing your mobile users and you’ll remain on Google’s good side.”

DeMeyers also suggests that using a responsive design that automatically flexes based on the device used to access it is the easiest way to achieve this.

So you see what else this tells me is you didn't even know all along what mobile first really was... If you did you wouldn't of used mobile first and responsive in the same sentence or paragraph or post.

Bwhahahaaaaa...

I don't mind debating, kinda pointless though when other party is lacking in knowledge.

[DesignzShop]

So you see, I can find many many many reasons to stay away from mobile first. Many.... I prefer responsive over and above mobile first and will argue that to the end. Just like apples and oranges, which do you like? May not be what I like, which is better for you? I may say my choice but you'll say another, most likely just to argue the point. Designing in mobile first has many drawbacks compared to responsive design. Few drawbacks when the tables are turned against responsive. Admittingly there a few, but not as many as mobile first imo and many many others know this too.

I know exactly what I'm talking about and why I support what I do. I'm not a sheeple and understand the repercussions of mobile first. As I said in the beginning of all this, no reason to strip away what IPB has to offer for mobile first thinking, responsive is just fine and follows the norm for now like millions of other websites.

As far as your tablet argument, there is none, it's a home pc, not a phone nor is it used as one. The closest Apple will get to that on iPad is Facetime. Apple along with android devices have understood this, that's why they are going forward with full desktop view for those devices. That's why the stats are separated. If you can't get that that's not my issue, the industry made the decision, not me. Anyhow, have a good night trying to dribble more non-sense.

[Dylan Riggs]

30 minutes ago, DesignzShop said:

Anyhow, have a good night trying to dribble more non-sense.

🙈 okay.  Whatever you say. 

 

[CoffeeCake]

6 hours ago, DesignzShop said:

I don't mind debating, kinda pointless though when other party is lacking in knowledge.

This sums up this back and forth quite nicely, though I'd suggest it was not a lack of knowledge that's the issue, but rather an unwillingness to take a perspective different from ones own. Discussion is a wonderful way to inspire learning.

Why the hostility and personal attacks though? What's to be gained here from the chest thumping and bravado? There's probably a nicer way to convey how you feel here, and there's a danger in the line of thinking that "my opinion and experience is the only correct opinion and experience."

I'm not sure what you're afraid of, yet I'm reminded of a programmer colleague from a past life that was aggressively hostile at the notion of web-based applications. He'd often devolve into ranting tirades and get physically intimidating in meetings whenever the idea of developing a browser based tool instead of a executable program written in VB6.

I took him out to lunch to try to get to the bottom of what was behind this disproportionate response to what was a better fit solution for the customer, and learned that it was he was afraid of losing his job if we started using web programming languages that he had no experience in using or knowledge of as a lifetime desktop application developer.

Fear of what we don't know can be dangerously limiting, and that former colleague lost his job not for what he didn't know--we would have given him all the on the job training and education he needed--but, instead, because of how he chose to response to his fear of the unknown: resorting to name calling, physical aggression, and bullying.

[christopher-w]

Same. Although for feelings to run that deep I assume there's more to this than meets the eye. I reckon this is not just about mobile/desktop split, or for that matter, a rift between 1 or more members.

I wonder, do the Invision team discuss their plans, or for that matter, take input from the community before setting out on a dev path.? After all, there appears to be some highly experienced folks on here, and many of them are not working for Invision.  I am wondering whether there's frustration creeping in. For folks that have invested considerably in this platform over the years, either as devs or clients, I am sure they want to be part of the collective decision about platform direction, rather than waiting to see where it's gone, following the latest release.

[opentype]

7 minutes ago, christopher-w said:

After all, there appears to be some highly experienced folks on here …

Who are in the same boat as IPS in handling thousands of clients at once? I highly doubt it. 

[christopher-w]

Just now, opentype said:

Who are in the same boat as IPS in handling thousands of clients at once? I highly doubt it. 

your point is what exactly?

[opentype]

2 minutes ago, christopher-w said:

your point is what exactly?

I thought it would be obvious. The individuals here naturally have a narrow focus based on the one or few sites they work on. And the feature requests from the clients are almost always self-centered. We ask for what suits the needs of our specific site(s) or what we personally find interesting or consider “the future” (see discussion above 😉). That’s normal and almost unavoidable. IPS is in a completely different situation serving thousands of clients at once and over the course of many years. The decision making works completely different when you ask individual admins/devs what they would do vs. IPS considering their entire user base. 
Obviously we need to continue to give give feedback since a software company serves the needs of their users, but that doesn’t mean that it should be a “collective decision making process”. The ship is hard to steer with hundreds of people trying to set the course to the direction they wanna go to. Better have a captain with a clear vision where to go and and experienced crew to get it done. 

[Dylan Riggs]

1 hour ago, christopher-w said:

Same. Although for feelings to run that deep I assume there's more to this than meets the eye. I reckon this is not just about mobile/desktop split, or for that matter, a rift between 1 or more members.

I wonder, do the Invision team discuss their plans, or for that matter, take input from the community before setting out on a dev path.? After all, there appears to be some highly experienced folks on here, and many of them are not working for Invision.  I am wondering whether there's frustration creeping in. For folks that have invested considerably in this platform over the years, either as devs or clients, I am sure they want to be part of the collective decision about platform direction, rather than waiting to see where it's gone, following the latest release.

I promise, I have no beef with him. I don't even know who he is. Somehow he knows me, or something. And talks about my past here, which was never bad. I was always up for debates and I'm passionate about my work, but hey it is what it is. I've said all I need to say in regards to what proof I have to offer. Do with it  and what happens. I'm not losing any sleep on it lol.

57 minutes ago, opentype said:

Who are in the same boat as IPS in handling thousands of clients at once? I highly doubt it. 

Trust me, I understand. I only offered suggestions in my original thread. It kind of got derailed debating about what is and isn't a mobile device.

24 minutes ago, opentype said:

I thought it would be obvious. The individuals here naturally have a narrow focus based on the one or few sites they work on. And the feature requests from the clients are almost always self-centered. We ask for what suits the needs of our specific site(s) or what we personally find interesting or consider “the future” (see discussion above 😉). That’s normal and almost unavoidable. IPS is in a completely different situation serving thousands of clients at once and over the course of many years. The decision making works completely different when you ask individual admins/devs what they would do vs. IPS considering their entire user base. 
Obviously we need to continue to give give feedback since a software company serves the needs of their users, but that doesn’t mean that it should be a “collective decision making process”. The ship is hard to steer with hundreds of people trying to set the course to the direction they wanna go to. Better have a captain with a clear vision where to go and and experienced crew to get it done. 

Lindy is a smart man - I have faith that IPS will hopefully move in a direction that benefits the masses and not the opposite of what you're saying. Regardless, if bigger clients are coming to me and they're telling me that a majority of their users are mobile, I still trust but verify. I run the numbers and see what they're actually using. I've seen where tablets are the majority, desktops and phones. It's great to always keep up with your analytics and develop accordingly. If the entire web is going that direction, and the client I have is 98 years old and never touched a computer in their life, I would advise to follow what is trending from a UI/UX perspective and develop whatever features they're sought after in that scale.

Unfortunately, IPS is hard to recommend as a community platform for the reasons I've laid out in my original posts before the derail in favor of  the majority of clients that are active.

I think any developer or project manager that is looking at software TODAY to provide to a client that is looking at social engagement is going to be hard pressed to recommend IPS  (in my opinion) unless there are many features that they need or the platform entirely makes sense. It's a matter of making informed decisions. Sadly, I feel IPS is behind other platforms. I definitely understand where you're coming from. I know it's going to be hard for IPS to choose certain directions when its current user base that has that niche or is fine where they are would possibly be affected and not want to approach something that affects them negatively, again balance. But I also have a gut feeling that over these last few years, more and more clients aren't signing up and some of the bigger boards have switched away entirely from the platform  (Bethesda was one)

This brings me back to my original discussion to hopefully bring this back on track. I want mobile-first approaches that make sense in scalability. Also, my recommendations aren't to pull all your eggs in one basket using proprietary frameworks as it, in my opinion has hurt our abilities to provide clients 3rd party themes and applications that are fully custom without relying on a small handful of active developers here. Things that I think any community should take a look at.

Looking forward to the next UI and many needed improvements and hopefully without the sacrifice of features. 

[DesignzShop]

The issue was designing in mobile first. When doing so it takes priority. There's certainly repercussions for that. There's even more dis-advantages I didn't get into for mobile first, in one of the links I left you can clearly see it also effects registrations, usage, seo and more.

Mobile first is built from mobile first then everything else, there's repercussions to that across other devices. Now were talking about 1 device over several.

I've done my research way before this thread existed. Mobile first is not a solution for everyone as to where Responsive design certainly covers the bases across the board better for most websites. This isn't about me wanting to ignore another means or way or being scared of change, it's about the facts of how mobile first handles the way we interact and produce across the board on all devices.

As Ralph has stated previously
"And the feature requests from the clients are almost always self-centered. We ask for what suits the needs of our specific site(s) or what we personally find interesting or consider “the future”"

Exactly, My version of this thought is just because mobile phones are up in usage doesn't mean that designing mobile first is the end all solution for the future, as a matter of fact, it's a specific solution for a specific set of circumstances that doesn't cover a wide enough spectrum of users.

I stay away from granular wants and stick with general needs that everyone could benefit from. In this case most everyone can benefit from a responsive design, not everyone can benefit from a mobile design. Facts show that.

In the past I know of a couple of situations involving Dylan that also included some out of line actions, one specifically stands out back in the 3.x.x series involving the Woodsman. I refuse to sit idle and let someone tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, wont happen. I also refuse to sit idle by and let someone disseminate incorrect information to get their way, wont happen.

 

Quote

Somehow he knows me, or something.

Another fabrication by Dylan.. As far as me knowing Dylan personally, never said I did or pretended to and there's no where he can prove that.

[christopher-w]

33 minutes ago, opentype said:

thought it would be obvious.

I just wanted clarification - hoping it wasn't as clichéd as it turned out to be.

 

46 minutes ago, opentype said:

(see discussion above 😉).

Lost interest at that point.

[christopher-w]

27 minutes ago, Dylan Riggs said:

Unfortunately, IPS is hard to recommend as a community platform for the reasons I've laid out in my original posts before the derail in favor of  the majority of clients that are active.

You see, I'm stuck on that comment. Invision's  not perfect, but I've not seen much to compete. There was a time when Telligent ruled the roost (2007/11), but went off track when it sold out.  Now who is there to compete with Invision? I spent hours today trying to find alternatives. As I do every few months. But came across the same old suspects - LinkedIn clones, or forums trying their best to be multi app platforms,

So assuming I've missed something, who is there? Who would/do you recommend in Invision's place? Totally understand if you consider that information to offer you a competitive advantage and is therefore propriety and confidential.

[Dylan Riggs]

Chris, feel free to PM me and I'll discuss with you competitive ideas. As it really depends on what your community is geared for and what you're trying to do. In many cases depending on the niche, I will recommend IPS depending on needs. Like I said, it's not that I don't like IPS - but when someone comes to me asking for something more mobile specific for their users and want to extend the functionality. It's hard to do so in many cases.

 

 

[Dylan Riggs]

44 minutes ago, DesignzShop said:

Another fabrication by Dylan.. As far as me knowing Dylan personally, never said I did or pretended to and there's no where he can prove that.

That's because you edit or I don't care to go back and finding it. You mentioned something "about my past here" along the lines of "Given your past here" something like that.

Look, I'm done - no point in debating with you. You're not worth my time. 🙂

[Woodsman]

Quote

Dedicated Or Responsive?

Fundamental to putting mobile first are the decisions around how to ensure users get a good experience when visiting your website using a mobile device.

There are two ways to do this:

• Create a dedicated mobile website to which visitors who are using a mobile device can be redirected
• Ensure that your website is “responsive” – so that the same content is served up optimized for the device through which a visitor is accessing the site.

Choosing between a dedicated mobile website and a responsive website has implications for user experience, search engine optimization (SEO), and cost, as well as practical implications for build, maintenance, and content management.

So, what should marketers bear in mind when deciding whether to build a separate dedicated mobile site or a responsive website?

What Is A Dedicated Mobile Website?

A dedicated mobile website is completely distinct from your main website. Usually, they are housed under a separate URL to your main website – for example, m.yoursite.com. Usually, visitors to the main site would be redirected to the mobile site if they are identified as using a mobile device.

Typically, a dedicated mobile site does not give users access to the full content of the desktop site – since this would require managing the content across both websites; effectively double the work for your content managers and developers.

However, they are designed specifically for use via mobile phones, so you can cherry-pick the content and features that will work best on a mobile phone. This has the potential to create a better user experience by presenting a smaller proportion of the content they could access on the desktop version of your site.

It is, therefore, vital to understanding more about the behavior of your website visitors when they access the site on a mobile device so that you can optimize the content you make available on the mobile site.

What Is A Responsive Website?

A responsive website adapts to the type of device being used to access it. For each visitor, the website will automatically adjust the layout of its content to match the visitor’s screen size. For example, content may be displayed in three-column format for a user accessing the website via a desktop computer, two-column format for a user accessing the website via a tablet or phablet, or in one-column format for a user accessing the website using a smartphone.

A responsive website has the advantage of being the best way to achieve parity of access to content for all visitors to your website, regardless of which device they are using to access it.

This has obvious advantages in terms of the development and maintenance costs of developing a single site vs the main site plus a separate dedicated mobile site, as well as simplifying the content management planning processes.

 

[DesignzShop]

Hello Woodsman,

Correct, as I said before, mobile first means that's primary to your site. Now what some didn't realize is when mobile first is done properly and truly that means a dedicated site to that. That means also SSO would need to be used after the redirect. Again,, responsive doesn't require that nor the extra effort to do this or extra costs occurred. Unless you want your main site primary first as I originally stated your not really mobile first. Someone didn't have a clue to what mobile first really meant to begin with or what it took to be mobile first.

[Dylan Riggs]

1 hour ago, Woodsman said:

 

Yes. Exactly.

Now you take those 2 highlighted bullets and lets focus on the 2nd one. This one:

1 hour ago, Woodsman said:

Ensure that your website is “responsive” – so that the same content is served up optimized for the device through which a visitor is accessing the site.

How would you approach the responsive design? IPS is responsive, any widely adopted somewhat modern post 2011-2012 sites following 'responsive' design do this.
The question is. Do you design your UI/UX for the lowest common denominator for your feature set, or do you scale down removing features as you go? Or do you find a balance?

In 2014ish or whenever IPS 4 was released and released a responsive framework, it focused on Desktop class browsing and then the smaller your screen gets, the more features are removed, but it was responsive. Back then in 2014, it wasn't widely adopted to think "mobile first" and instead, just introducing a responsive site helped many sites as they no longer needed to support a mobile theme.

IPS knows what this is - it is called "graceful degredation" or this incorporates all of the complexities right from the start, then strips them away later for smaller devices. The problem with graceful degradation is that when you build the all-inclusive design right from the start, the core and supplementary elements merge and become harder to distinguish and separate. The entire philosophy runs the risk of treating mobile design as more of an afterthought since you’re “cutting down” the experience.

My debate is, it's been like that for over 5 years now with little, if any changes made to the responsiveness to battle the ever increasing use in mobile website consumption. It's been stated here and proven here that by each year, more people are using mobile devices (Phones, tablets and phablets) yet this specific software has not kept up with the times in my opinion. Agree or disagree, that's fine. I'm simply pointing it out. 

Quote

 

A dedicated mobile website is completely distinct from your main website. Usually, they are housed under a separate URL to your main website – for example, m.yoursite.com. Usually, visitors to the main site would be redirected to the mobile site if they are identified as using a mobile device.

Typically, a dedicated mobile site does not give users access to the full content of the desktop site – since this would require managing the content across both websites; effectively double the work for your content managers and developers.

 

Yes - this is true. Mobile themes are separate entities, hence why when you look at statistics, an all in one that 'supports' touch are still lumped with desktops because it is rendered via the OS. A windows 10 2-in tablet is considered a desktop browser even if it's smaller than an iPad

Which reinforces what I was saying earlier. I understand that it is hard for IPS to keep up with a mobile theme because it itself is an entirely different theme. They are just the options that you use. I'm perfectly fine with a responsive design. However, I cannot agree with a desktop UI/UX catering and then just removal of features as you scale to the users viewport on smaller screen/resolution devices. There MUST be a balance, but even small improvements to the UI that I've pointed out here will greatly help users on these smaller mobile devices have a better browsing experience, yet there aren't any removal of features, aren't any extra added bloat to the software, no added additional support and so on.

Dedicated mobile themes really just come down to the company willilng to work with it. A smaller company, no? I wouldn't want a mobile theme. I wouldn't want IPS to have a mobile theme. Amazon, bigger store fronts etc have them without content loss because they have the ability to support it.

 

 

[Fast Lane!]

IPS had separate mobile and desktop themes for probably 10+ years.  I think around 2013 / 14 is when they went to a single responsive design.

I'm a fan of responsive but I do agree the mobile UI (based on screen width) could be tailored a bit more to include include functions that are currently missing.  I manually ad back some features myself but others are harder.  As easy example of something I think should be standard is custom profile fields that show on the left of a post under the author name are not shown on mobile.  They form a big part of a members identify on many forums and without them the mobile view is less informative which makes the site less engaging. 

[Dylan Riggs]

7 minutes ago, DesignzShop said:

Hello Woodsman,

Correct, as I said before, mobile first means that's primary to your site. Now what some didn't realize is when mobile first is done properly and truly that means a dedicated site to that. That means also SSO would need to be used after the redirect. Again,, responsive doesn't require that nor the extra effort to do this or extra costs occurred. Unless you want your main site primary first as I originally stated your not really mobile first. Someone didn't have a clue to what mobile first really meant to begin with or what it took to be mobile first.

You can go ahead and call me out as if I don't know what a mobile first approach is. Here: https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/a-hands-on-guide-to-mobile-first-design/

Read it. Over and over again. This approach doesn't matter if it's a mobile theme or a responsive site - it is simply DESIGNING your site, approaching how to display the content etc while scaling up. Not the other way around. This is irrelevant to HOW you get to it. IPS is using the graceful degredation method in UI/UX design.

I can't take you anymore, I've only ever blocked one person from here. Now you make #2 - you lack misunderstanding heavily and after this long conversations we've had here. I have to say that I now realize you've been trolling me this entire time, your arguments hold nearly zero validity, and clearly from a UI/UX perspective, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about on a professional level. Perhaps one day you can become a UI/UX designer that I'll look up to, but at this point in time. I've determined you've got a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before that day comes. Good luck to you and I wish the best of luck to all the future designers you come into contact with.. May their local drug stores always have coupons available for some migraine medicine and I hope the people you typically interact with on the daily always have a good supply of ear plugs.

Annnnd block

[DesignzShop]

2 hours ago, Dylan Riggs said:

You can go ahead and call me out as if I don't know what a mobile first approach is. Here: https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/a-hands-on-guide-to-mobile-first-design/

Read it. Over and over again. This approach doesn't matter if it's a mobile theme or a responsive site - it is simply DESIGNING your site, approaching how to display the content etc while scaling up. Not the other way around. This is irrelevant to HOW you get to it. IPS is using the graceful degredation method in UI/UX design.

I can't take you anymore, I've only ever blocked one person from here. Now you make #2 - you lack misunderstanding heavily and after this long conversations we've had here. I have to say that I now realize you've been trolling me this entire time, your arguments hold nearly zero validity, and clearly from a UI/UX perspective, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about on a professional level. Perhaps one day you can become a UI/UX designer that I'll look up to, but at this point in time. I've determined you've got a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before that day comes. Good luck to you and I wish the best of luck to all the future designers you come into contact with.. May their local drug stores always have coupons available for some migraine medicine and I hope the people you typically interact with on the daily always have a good supply of ear plugs.

Annnnd block

This from you clearly states the Mobile first approach which means Mobile First as stated. Knowing you'd be altering what you said I took it upon myself to screenshot all your posts.

 

Mobile first means just that  no matter how you say it. You say mobile first that's a specific way to design.

 

Quote

Now you take those 2 highlighted bullets and lets focus on the 2nd one. This one:

Of course you want to gloss over the real fact to be mobile first your site has to be dedicated to that primarily. You also glossed over you'd need to redirect your site to another and use SSO to make it work. This is something else most users will not care to do. Another dis-advantage to mobile first..

 

I'm glad most here seen you were asking for mobile first. This clearly indicates you had no clue of what mobile first really was. Clearly, as you keep on attacking me with name calling as you have others in the past here It's also clear you have lost your argument in a big way and feel the need to name call yet again. Again, pretty sad.

I've never seen someone flip flop in my life more than you. Mobile First means just that, responsive means just that, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You've dug yourself into a hole here and can't decide on what you have said over and over so you've made edits to make the ignorance go away, but too late for that. You really need to decide which it is you want or want to talk about once you understand the difference which clearly, you did not before. I'm glad to see you got schooled properly however!

Here's another flip-flop... Which is it and why are you saying 2 different things. One minute you say you'll refuse to recommend IPB, you say "I can no longer keep recommending IPB to clients"
1st page of thread

Last page of thread you say "I Will recommend IPS depending on needs"

You can also say till the end I have no clue to what I was saying, I've over and over proven my side with facts you couldn't do, not even come close to with just opinion.

Clearly also the biggest mistake here was not your ignorance in regards to mobile first vs responsive, it was attacking IPB and the clear mis-judgement it's a forum software and not a multi-app software. You say you trust Lindy to make the right call when in fact you've flipped on the other side over the software and the way it's handled now with a responsive design and said other mis-aligned comments about the software itself in the current state it's designed in. My personal suggestion to you is just stop, your credibility has been severely damaged.

 

[Matt]

Just a little clarification regarding my comments about our site's desktop/mobile split (taken from GA), it wasn't meant to demonstrate that mobile isn't important or we don't realise that for a good number of our clients, mobile is the dominant platform; it was more to demonstrate that we serve a wide array of clients with different needs.

We do of course recognise that a good mobile experience is critical to our future.

We have to take smaller steps to get to somewhere different. We can't alienate our existing customer base by springing a completely different way of working and organising data overnight.

[DesignzShop]

@Matt

I do want to say I myself and some of my clients LOVE the community app solution idea and can't wait for that when 4.5 comes. It's a great idea that personally I believe will take off in a big way. The time, money and easy implementation it saves the customer or in my case the client is the answer I feel to a mobile solution. 

Thanks again

[Joel R]

21 hours ago, christopher-w said:

Same. Although for feelings to run that deep I assume there's more to this than meets the eye. I reckon this is not just about mobile/desktop split, or for that matter, a rift between 1 or more members.

I wonder, do the Invision team discuss their plans, or for that matter, take input from the community before setting out on a dev path.? After all, there appears to be some highly experienced folks on here, and many of them are not working for Invision.  I am wondering whether there's frustration creeping in. For folks that have invested considerably in this platform over the years, either as devs or clients, I am sure they want to be part of the collective decision about platform direction, rather than waiting to see where it's gone, following the latest release.

As a preface, I want to make clear that my comments - in no way - should be construed as official company response.  I'm a volunteer Community Advocate.  

Its important to keep in mind the scope of the client base. IPS operates architecture for Cloud and Enterprise clients, which gives them an unprecedented first-person view of aggregate visitor and user trends across thousands of distinct communities.  Many other software developers only offer the software, and they're disconnected from the backend.  The combined  software + hosting architecture gives IPS real-time insight and trends across a range of branded, high-value communities and organizations.  This provides a powerful, analytical decision point that can be paired with client feedback.  

With that said, the individual concerns are always the important to the company. It would be impossible for IPS to solicit individual feedback from every client, which is why it's requested that you provide feedback in the forums.  It can be aggregated, organized, and revisited and your feedback of course shapes the debates and discussions of the development team. 

[christopher-w]

15 minutes ago, Joel R said:

As a preface, I want to make clear that my comments - in no way - should be construed as official company response.  I'm a volunteer Community Advocate.  

Its important to keep in mind the scope of the client base. IPS operates architecture for Cloud and Enterprise clients, which gives them an unprecedented first-person view of aggregate visitor and user trends across thousands of distinct communities.  Many other software developers only offer the software, and they're disconnected from the backend.  The combined  software + hosting architecture gives IPS real-time insight and trends across a range of branded, high-value communities and organizations.  This provides a powerful, analytical decision point that can be paired with client feedback.  

With that said, the individual concerns are always the important to the company. It would be impossible for IPS to solicit individual feedback from every client, which is why it's requested that you provide feedback in the forums.  It can be aggregated, organized, and revisited and your feedback of course shapes the debates and discussions of the development team. 

Yes, I am sure that's the intention, but the larger the user base, the more generic the solution - just look at O365. Which is why I advocate core being wrapped in a versioned API, which allows theme devs and more advanced owners to construct their own front end presentation. Plus themes don't break when core is updated because they will be authored against an API version.

[DesignzShop]

I would also like to add this is not a mobile first approach as the title of this thread asked for. This works from the feature rich applications we have and filters what's needed from that, not the other way around. We still get to keep all the features we had instead of stripping them away which is what designing truly in mobile first would do. Pickings may be slim in the beginning but... features can be added where truly needed from what we have. My point this entire thread.

 

2 hours ago, christopher-w said:

Yes, I am sure that's the intention, but the larger the user base, the more generic the solution - just look at O365. Which is why I advocate core being wrapped in a versioned API, which allows theme devs and more advanced owners to construct their own front end presentation. Plus themes don't break when core is updated because they will be authored against an API version.

In the future as has been pointed out, some of those extended features can be added into the new community mobile feature as you've read, the content is already present, just needs to be in some cases aggregated into the new feature. In the future releases there's no reason why themes couldn't be added even though they may need to be color matched once. However there's another bonus, you wont have to worry about maintenance on that theme or costs associated with that. You wouldn't need much for settings to accommodate the simple view of mobile imo and some general settings would be an idea to present to IPB for this if they already don't have a idea on what that would be.. My guess is they already have a idea however. A simple logo and you're done.

 

As per what Joel has said to expand from what we have in our feature rich software now it's vital to..

2 hours ago, Joel R said:

It would be impossible for IPS to solicit individual feedback from every client, which is why it's requested that you provide feedback in the forums.  It can be aggregated, organized, and revisited and your feedback of course shapes the debates and discussions of the development team. 

 

As I believe IPB will prove in the near future we don't need design and function derived from the mobile first constraints to be successful at having a positive mobile experience. 🙂