IT IS now possible to get easy access to information on Dart-moor National Park from your mobile device, thanks to the recently launched version of the National Park Authority's website.

The past few years have seen a significant increase in the number of people accessing the internet from mobile devices, including smart phones and tablets.

In 2012 nearly a third of all users of the national park authority's website accessed it using a mobile device. 

With this in mind, a local company, Pulse8, was commissioned to develop a new responsive design, which would change the look and feel of the website, based on the size of the screen on the device that was accessing it.

Ali Bright, head of ICT and premises for Dartmoor National Park Authority, said: 'The new design ensures that people using mobile phones can navigate with ease throughout the site. It enables pages to be read with the minimum amount of resizing, panning, and scrolling and without changing the design for users of traditional desktop com-puters. 

'The mobile design has a drop down menu that remains throughout the site enabling easy access to the main sections of the site. It also has a dedicated News section.

'Try visiting http://www.dart">www.dart moor.gov.uk on your browser using a normal screen resolution and then access the same site using your mobile phone to see the design in action.'

Matt Salter of Pulse8 said: 'We are delighted to have been chosen to develop the new mobile website for Dartmoor National Park Authority.

'Reacting to a steady increase in mobile and tablet use, our priority was to remove all potential bulky elements and focus on bringing the key navigation to the forefront of the screen, with additional content flowing below.

'The new mobile website will provide much greater engage ment rates across the range of devices that are now available to view online content.'

The National Park Authority has also introduced a free wifi service into the National Park Visitor Centre at Princetown which will enhance the Dartmoor experience for those who visit, such as down- loading walks to your device.

This service is provided by 'The Cloud', and is widely available throughout the UK in many other places, such as pubs, railway stations, and shopping centres.  It has the advantage that once you have registered in one location, there is no need to do so again on a repeat visit.

The wifi service is due to be expanded to include the National Park Visitor Centres at Postbridge and Haytor for the start of the new season beginning Easter 2014.