Something I do all the time on my tablet is switch between the
'mobile'
site and the desktop version of the site (mostly it's from mobile to
desktop since on most sites, their mobile version is meant for phones,
not tablets, and it a horrible experience). This comes down to user
preference.
The main usecase for this functionality is if I am on a phone and I go
to the site. For some reason my phone doesn't get detected as a mobile
device. Now I am on the desktop version of the site, on a phone, and its
a bad experience.
Since my phone didn't get detected as being a mobile device the first
time, I can't just dynamically display a link on the desktop site if I
think they are a mobile, since doing the detection again isn't going to
change anything.
So displaying the link now is for catching this error condition.
Now it's clear
to me the importance of having a link to the mobile site in the desktop version :)
If I have a link at the top of the page (ideally near the top left),
then I can easily see on my phone that there is a site designed for my
device and I can hit the link to go there (discoverability)
Won't you probably
realize that the site is designed for your phone by observing that it's different from
the desktop version? I agree that the links at the top make it even clearer, but maybe
it's not a necessary condition for the discoverability.
If its in the footer, than I would have to scroll all the way
through
the page and have to search for the link (and I would have to do this
blindly and assume there is such a link somewhere on the page, which may
or may not be true for most sites).
By observing some big sites (like Facebook, I
realized that they often put this link in the footer. That's probably because they
assume that changing the site version is not the common action, but a exception. I agree
with this approach. If the site is not redirect properly redirected and the user realizes
that it is not well presented, he will look for a place to find a link to make the
change.
If anyone can come up with another way of handling these situations,
then maybe we don't need the redirect links in the header.
My main argument is
based in the users' behaviors. If the majority of our users (our main target) want to
switch between site versions often, so the links need to be highlighted (maybe in the
header). But if switching the site version is gonna be an exception (because the
redirection didn't work very well), than the links should be in a modest place (like
the footer). And even if most of people want to do it, once they have switched and
won't do it anymore, the links become a visual noise in the interface -- so it's
better to be in a more hidden place.
Thoughts?
Gabriel