3 Important Considerations in Designing a Mobile Website

Have you prepared your website to welcome the mobile user? If not, you are ignoring a huge rising community of mobile web surfers that keeps growing in number each day. Just like all the top websites, your business/website needs a mobile optimized site as well. Wondering why; because, people are more likely to surf the web from mobile devices than from a PC in the coming years.

So, the question is how can you optimize your website for the growing mobile users? Let’s see some important points to keep in mind while designing your website for mobiles/tablets.

1. Think like a mobile user

This is a very obvious yet crucial point. You need to think like a mobile user before you can start optimizing your website for mobile phones. Mobile web users are usually casual surfers unlike desktop users. To keep them glued to your site, it needs to provide a pleasant user experience. User interface plays a very important role when it comes to mobile websites rather than a normal website for the desktop. The space available is limited and hence it should be efficiently utilized.

Also remember, people searching for your business would be interested in knowing the basic information like location, working hours, contact information, etc. So, ensure that these details are clearly listed on your mobile site.

2. Simplify

Mobile web users tend to be lazier and less tolerant when it comes to viewing a web page; they simply won’t stay in a complicated website for too long. If your site presents itself as a hard nut to crack, you are going to miss their business. To keep them patient on your site, your site needs to be simpler and simpler. Try to limit the text in your mobile site and use image buttons instead of clickable links. Although mobile surfers like to use sites with dark backgrounds, don’t go for the real black. Plain white hurts the eyes too; so you need to choose a suitable shade that matches your niche.

Always keep in mind that a mobile website should be entirely different from the traditional websites. You should leave some white space untouched as it gives your site a much cleaner and user friendly look.

3. Avoid using Flash/JavaScript

Most mobile browsers are made to deliver the basic html content of a website alone. Avoid using flash and JavaScript as many mobile browsers can’t render them properly, and it could mean a broken site at their end. Pop-up windows are a ‘Big No’ for mobile websites; people hate pop-ups even on desktop sites. Do not use too many images on your mobile website as it may take more time to load on the mobile browsers.

Nobody can tell you a bulletproof way of optimizing your site for mobile; you need to experiment yourself to find out what works and what doesn’t. It goes without saying that you should match your branding elements with your main website, yet you can try doing this entirely different as part of the experimentation process.

Facebook is a great example of this idea; they keep rolling out new features frequently and revert back what doesn’t work. You can also refer the big players out there to get some idea on mobile website optimization. Do not forget to add a link to your full site from the mobile site as some people find it necessary sometimes. So optimizing your mobile website is all about simple user interface and a cleaner layout. Make sure your mobile website doesn’t repel its users and that’s the key point to keep in mind.