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Use of mobiles and tablets is increasing fast with almost 30% of visits to guardian.co.uk now coming through handheld devices. We want our mobile and tablet readers to have the best possible experience when using the Guardian website on smaller screens. Therefore, after several months of development, we are delighted to announce the launch of our new responsive mobile website.
We have rebuilt our mobile site from the ground up, focusing on improving user experience, reliability and download speed. Our aim is to provide the best user experience for reading our content, whatever your device. The new mobile website is a major first step towards that responsive goal, though it is currently only optimised for smaller screens: smartphones and tablets up to seven inches. If you view the site on an iPad or anything larger, you will still see the desktop site.
Experience
The site is designed to provide a better reading experience, with a focus on simplicity. On any mobile device, you will be presented with a clear view of the news with minimal distraction.
On our new homepage and the main section pages, we hope providing more detail for each of the main stories in the form of a headline, explanatory text and an image will provide more context on the news and make it easier for you to find the stories you are interested in exploring further.
We've switched from standard webfonts to our bespoke Guardian Egyptian typeface and increased the size which we think provides a great reading experience. From each story you'll find related articles to allow you to easily continue your exploration of a specific story. Images within stories will also increase in size as you view with larger screens.
If you follow our live blogs, you'll find these now auto-update every minute and football fans will find we've improved our live scores page to update every 10 seconds.
Speed and reliability
Overall you will find the site fast to use, as we've optimised the code to make it more efficient to download. We've used the very latest technologies to allow us to deliver content quicker, while also ensuring the site is accessible to all and functionally rich. Our new architecture allows the site to be much more robust during high-traffic periods.
Responsive across devices
Rather than designing one size for all mobile devices, you'll find our new site is responsive and will scale up on mobiles and smaller tablets. The site is optimised for up to seven inch devices, but you can still use it at any size.
We're continuing to work on the design, functionality and user interface, and we are committed to learning from how you use the site so it evolves to best serve all web experiences. The site still sits at m.guardian.co.uk and m.guardiannews.com and will continue to do so for the near future, but our end goal is to have all platforms on the same web address.
Evolution of functionality
Rather than release a site with every feature built, you'll find this site will continue to grow and evolve. We've released beta versions of this site early and will continue to push out updates often to continue to test and improve it.
This means you're seeing the benefits as early as possible, but also means you're seeing just the first steps toward a much better overall experience. We are working hard to add features such as search and the ability to write comments to match desktop website functionality.
As an improvement to our old mobile site, you'll already find we now have much improved swipe-through photo galleries and you can watch videos on your mobile device.
Feedback
We'd really like your feedback. Please visit the link at the bottom of the page on a mobile and let us know what you think. You can also leave a comment below or tweet us at @guardianmobile. We hope you enjoy the site, but if you have any technical difficulties please email userhelp@guardian.co.uk.
