Colours of Istria 2017

Our clients, the Northwestern Istria Cluster, set us a challenge: to make their website www.coloursofistria.com fully responsive so they could discontinue their standalone mobile website and mobile app. In fact, the contents of their mobile website were only a summary of the desktop version, and their mobile app had to be updated separately since it was delivered by a different vendor.

However, the project did not include reworking the design and concept of the desktop version, which would have enabled a mobile-first approach.

We had several objectives: make the website responsive to different devices; keep the existing contents; let the clients manage the contents with minimum effort.
We based our work on a Bootstrap front-end web framework. By implementing the Bootstrap framework and introducing breakpoints into the existing front-end, we obtained a fluid grid. Then we adapted each element to the new situation by testing it on various devices, smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.

The contents of the desktop and mobile versions were already contained within a single system. When we introduced the responsive website, however, it eliminated the need for the maintenance of two front-ends and for the editors to write two versions of the same content.

After much hard work and constant testing, we achieved the objectives in a way that satisfied the clients and us. And we believe that the cluster's guests will be satisfied too. Starting this summer, they will not be paying for data roaming, so they will not need an app to economise on mobile traffic. Benefits for everyone!

Written and edited by Marko Plovanić