BLOG: RWD is now how we're delivering content

AKRON (March 20, 2015) — I expect my jeans to fit me when I put them on in the morning. I take expectations seriously. It's how I determine what products to buy and what I deliver to my own customers. Matching expectations to delivery is a big part of my job.

I like hearing what the readers of Tire Business expect or hope to get from our pages, website, newsletters and related products. Even for those who don't verbalize their expectations, I use data to figure out how to change our online products to meet the needs of our readers.

That's why I'm excited to announce our website and our newsletters are changing to a responsive web design. This means our site and newsletters will recognize whether you're using a desktop, tablet or mobile phone and format to fit that device. Once that's recognized, your experience will be optimized to fit the screen of your device.

Our site's navigation elements, screen-layouts, text, images, audio/video players and other user interface elements readjust themselves to fit your preferences.

We see an increase in the number of you visiting our site and opening our newsletters from mobile phones and tablets each year. But for those of you who still prefer to view the newsletters and website at your desk from your computer each day, your experience won't change or be interrupted.

People who travel for work can start reading the day's top stories on their computer, then pick up the story on the tablet while they are shuttled to the office, then on their mobile phones while they're waiting in line to board. If you're at a business lunch, and we send out a breaking news alert, you can open and read it without adjusting or resizing on your mobile phone.

We're also offering you more on our site. Now we'll offer a meter on your stories, so you know how much longer you have before you're done reading. This is especially helpful on a mobile phone. We're also changing the homepage of www.tirebusiness.com so the further down the screen you scroll, more stories load automatically for you.

We hope you'll take advantage of these and other tools we've built for you.

As you start to get more comfortable with the latest responsive web design, we would love to hear from you. Feel free to send a letter to the editor about it to [email protected] or reach out to Tire Business Online Manager Alaina Scott at [email protected] or 330-865-6129.