Severe performance and other issues with pages linked across variants

[3rdDegree]

I just purchased the upgrade to Web Designer 10 Premium to use the mobile variant feature and must say I have not been having much success.

The main issue I seem to have is when a page on the desktop variant has a lot of "complexity" or widgets, the mobile variant of that page is very slow and problematic. It's like the mobile variant is trying to "process" elements from the desktop variant.

For instance, this page looks and works fine in any desktop browser: http://www.dreamscapes.ie/samples.htm, but when I try to access its much simpler mobile variant, the performance on the phone/tablet is very poor, becoming unusable at times (just hanging for over a minute). No elements are shared between the two variants.

The desktop version has 6 widgets with embedded Vimeo videos. The mobile version has 4 simply images and a few buttons which some links. To test my theory, I created a new blank page called samples_mobile in the mobile variant. I copied my 4 images and buttons to it. That means that the desktop variant of samples_mobile is just a blank page. The mobile variant now loads perfectly and works without issue on the phone. In fact, this would be the perfect solution except when using the site on a tablet, if I turn the tablet to landscape mode, the desktop version of my new samples_mobile page appears which is the blank page.

So provided what I said so far makes any, I guess my questions are:

1. Is there a way to stop elements or widgets from the desktop variant interfering with performance and functionality on the mobile variant.
2. If not (which I suspect is the case), if there are way to stop the site switching back to the desktop variant on a device like a tablet when you switch it to landscape mode. Considering that it chooses variants based on screen width, I suspect the answer to this also "no".
3. Do I have any other alternatives here, apart from abandon variants altogether? Or is my site just badly designed?

Many thanks

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi,

That page loads fine on my Mobile but takes time to resize to the screen. The videos don't open as they do in the desktop version. If I click on the mobile link I get asked what I want to open the link in, Chrome, YouTube and others. If I choose Chrome I get the following message:
"This video contains content from WMG. It is restricted from playback on certain sites. WATCH IN YOUTUBE"
YouTube plays as expected.

What size are your variants?

[pauland]

the performance on the phone/tablet is very poor, becoming unusable at times (just hanging for over a minute).

Saw no issues with my iPad over WiFi

if I turn the tablet to landscape mode, the desktop version of my new samples_mobile page appears which is the blank page.

No blank page on my iPad.

stop the site switching back to the desktop variant on a device like a tablet when you switch it to landscape mode.

There's no reason to do that

is my site just badly designed?
Looks OK on my laptop and iPad.

My quick test hasn't shown any performance issues at all. I imagine the experience might be quite different over 3G.

[ Had a quick go on my iPhone, and again really worked well on WiFi - wedding videos look professional and classy. ]

[gwpriester]

Bear in mind that mobile devices, are usually slower than desktop devices that are plugged directly to a router or modem.

So design accordingly. You can design a mobile variant that looks great if you are sitting in front of your wireless router and you have your device set for WiFi but on a mobile network, the bandwidth is just not that great. And location is also a factor.

So, I don't think you should expect a mobile device to work as efficiently as a computer monitor.

All that said, I think your site is very handsome and professional and if I were getting married I would use you for my wedding videos.

[pauland]

Really there are two kinds of mobile website.

One is intended for use out and about and on the go and the other where there is good WiFi.

I'd say that for this site, nobody is going to be booking wedding services and checking out wedding videos on the go with 3G. It's the desktop site that is going to sell this service, the mobile version on 3G is the business card.

It's perfectly fine looking at the desktop site on a tablet and it would be crazy forcing the smaller format lightweight experience on tablet users.

[3rdDegree]

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the help and the kind words about the site.

But it definitely does seem to be "loading" elements from the desktop version. For instance, if you load http://www.dreamscapes.ie/samples.htm from a mobile phone, it will load a lot slower than this version which has a blank desktop equivalent http://www.dreamscapes.ie/samplessimple.htm