Dear Colleagues:

In an effort to meet the needs of those who derive much of their online information from mobile devices, the NIAMS has developed a mobile version of its website at niams.nih.gov. We have employed what is known as “responsive design” to provide optimal viewing and easy navigation of health information across a wide range of mobile devices. Now visitors using smart phones or tablets can more easily view our content on diseases of the bones, joints, muscles, and skin with minimal resizing and scrolling. Mobile device users are increasingly accessing information, about health in particular, using a variety of electronic tools. We have seen the same trend among visitors to the NIAMS website. In June 2011, mobile devices accounted for 10 percent of traffic to the NIAMS website. By September 2012, that figure had risen to 24 percent.

The NIAMS website is one of the most effective means of providing information to our audiences, and information dissemination is a core component of the NIAMS mission. In our first venture into delivering content using responsive design, the NIAMS is showcasing its health information, the pages most-visited by web users. Accessing the entire NIAMS website from a mobile device is still possible through the main navigation menu at the top of each page and a link at the bottom of each page. Health information is also available in Spanish and Chinese in easy-to-read formats. This effort to make our health information more accessible to those using the latest mobile technologies will enhance our reach, putting our materials on bones, joints, muscles, and skin into the hands of more people than ever before.

I encourage you to visit niams.nih.gov and let us know your thoughts. We will continue to monitor traffic to the NIAMS website and be attentive to changing trends as online visitors quickly adopt new technologies.