Experience Life Meets the Needs of Busy, On-The-Go Readers with New, Responsive Design Website

CHANHASSEN, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Experience Life, the whole-life health and wellness magazine published by Life Time – The Healthy Way of Life Company (NYSE:LTM), has launched an enhanced version of its award-winning website, ExperienceLife.com, joining a short list of media organizations that have optimized their online presence with a responsive web design.

“Each week, more and more tablet and smartphones are released and purchased”

ExperienceLife.com’s new responsive web design makes the site mobile- and tablet-friendly and meets the growing demands of its busy, on-the-go audience.

“Our goal is to provide readers with a positive, consistent experience and easy access no matter where they are and regardless of their chosen device, be it a desktop computer, laptop, e-reader, tablet or smartphone,” says Jamie Martin, Experience Life’s digital initiatives manager. “Mobile traffic to our site has increased significantly over the past two years, with more than a third of our traffic coming from smartphones and tablets. Our new responsively designed site allows for the flexibility readers want and deserve.”

Optimizing for responsive web design allows ExperienceLife.com to detect and dynamically respond to each visitor’s platform, device or screen size, while preserving design and functionality elements that visitors recognize from the main website. The site’s new responsive design also enables the Experience Life team to maintain just one backend platform, unlike many websites, which have separate sites designed specifically for mobile browsing.

“Most of our readers lead incredibly complex, time-compressed lives balancing careers, families and their own personal commitments to living a healthy way of life, and often look to grab the information they need at the spur of the moment,” says Pilar Gerasimo, Experience Life’s editor in chief. Providing a mobile-friendly, easy-to-navigate site that works well under these ‘just in time’ conditions is one way we can make their lives easier.”

The project to optimize ExperienceLife.com with a responsive design began in the fall of 2012 and was completed in collaboration with Minneapolis-based web developer Garrick van Buren. “Each week, more and more tablet and smartphones are released and purchased,” says van Buren.

“One of the most cost-effective ways for web publishers to make sure their sites offer real functionality no matter their users' choice of platform or screen size is through responsive design. I'm pleased to have worked with the Experience Life team in transforming their website into one that looks and works on any device."

ExperienceLife.com launched as a standalone website in January 2008. Experience Life also released its first mobile app, 101 Revolutionary Ways to Be Healthy, for iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire and Android devices in October 2011, which has nearly 100,000 downloads to date.

About Experience Life
First published in 2001, Experience Life is an award-winning whole-life health and wellness magazine committed to helping its readers improve their health and fitness while enjoying more satisfying, authentic and meaningful lives. It covers a wide variety of quality-of-life topics, including health and nutrition, fitness and athletics, personal wisdom, stress-management, sustainable lifestyle, active adventures, and more. Published 10 times a year, Experience Life is available by subscription and on select newsstands nationwide, including many Whole Foods Market and Barnes & Noble stores. It currently enjoys a circulation of more than 630,000, with an MRI-estimated reach of 3.2 million. For more information about Experience Life, including 11 years of archived content, please visit the award-winning ExperienceLife.com.

About Life Time Fitness, Inc.
As The Healthy Way of Life Company, Life Time Fitness (NYSE:LTM) helps organizations, communities and individuals achieve their total health objectives, athletic aspirations and fitness goals by engaging in their areas of interest – or discovering new passions – both inside and outside of Life Time’s distinctive and large sports, professional fitness, family recreation and spa destinations, most of which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Company’s Healthy Way of Life approach enables customers to achieve this by providing the best programs, people and places of uncompromising quality and value. As of March 4, 2013, the Company operated 105 centers under the LIFE TIME FITNESS^® and LIFE TIME ATHLETIC^SM brands in the United States and Canada. Additional information about Life Time centers, programs and services is available at lifetimefitness.com.