Mobile website optimization is becoming increasingly important for businesses. But how do you design a mobile website that is both mobile friendly and functional? This article explores three key elements when designing for mobile.
1. Focus your mobile content
It is important to keep content on mobile websites to a minimum in a concise, yet informative style. This will ensure that more of your content will be read and be useful to the reader on-the-go.
Break large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs or lists: users accessing mobile websites don’t view content the same way as users accessing from a desktop do, so give their eyes a break and communicate the information more effectively.
Keep graphics, videos and animations to a bare minimum: these elements can increase load time drastically.
2. Make mobile navigation easy
On the small screens of today’s mobile devices, it can be difficult to distinguish links from content or buttons from background.
Be ‘thumb friendly’ and ‘click-able’: keep the touch screen in mind when designing buttons.
Provide feedback: when an button is clicked, something about the button should change to indicate that it has been selected.
3. Give the user some space
White space, that is. Don’t be afraid of giving up mobile screen real estate. Define your focal points with white space.
Organize content: crowded, jumbled content is unappealing to mobile users. Use colour contrast, boarders, fonts and lists to give the layout a spacious and orderly feel.
Use a single column layout: reduce the amount of vertical and horizontal scrolling the user has to do to view the content of your page.
Design for mobile: mobile devices have different capabilities than desktops. Design your site to utilize the functions of the mobile devices: where applicable, give users the opportunity to share photos or call with the tap of a finger.