A few years ago, as responsive design began to gain traction, I began hearing a somewhat divisive conversation that seemed to fall along whether mobile websites should mimic the same UI paradigms that were already popular in native mobile applications.
I believe part of the debate was muddled by the types of content that sometimes differed on websites and applications. However, plenty of early native apps merely served as shells for viewing their website counter part. So in many cases that argument was moot.
So where am I going with all of this? Being a responsible mobile web designer, and web designer in general, means we should look at all UI variations that pertain to the types of content we are dealing with. And technology type shouldn’t be an automatic disqualification in considering its application to a project.
If anything I find many mobile website experiences lacking compared to what we are seeing in native apps these days. It’s time we place mobile UI performance and experiences in a higher priority for our mobile web designs.
And nothing says “lazy” quite like adding a basic hide/show function to our desktop sized navigation bars for mobile.