More mobile friendly websites

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Menu M O B I L E - F R I E N D
M O R E by Connie Baker
23 AUG 2015
Over 77 of Australians own a smartphone and
mobile represents over half of all ecommerce
traffic and overall traffic (51), a figure set
to grow. As mobile technology becomes more and
more popular in Australia its important to
ensure that your website is more mobile-friendly.
A sign of the trend is Google recently expanding
and prioritising mobile friendliness with their
latest algorithm update. Here the Website Design
Centre team offer the top tips to ensure you have
a more mobile-friendly website Be
responsive Mobile responsiveness is when a
website is designed to detect the device visitors
are using and adjust the screen size and
functionality accordingly. You can easily begin
this process by designing for the smallest screen
before testing on larger screens.
Its also important to ensure that visitors can
navigate your website and complete browsing, form
completion, searching, purchasing and browsing
across different devices with too much confusion
or inconvenience. Consider a save or share
function to allow for visitors to continue their
journey at a later time. Easy search Search
functions are extremely important on mobile
platforms and so are extremely important when
designing your website. Make the search bar is
found on each and every page and consider
features such as spelling suggestions and
auto-complete both of these will serve to
reduce the time taken to type in required
information. Quick and easy forms Like with
the search function above, you need to make form
completion as quick and easy as possible. Reduce
the number of essential fields, add auto-fill
functionality, and consider a progress bar so
users are aware of how much more there is to
complete. Functionality
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Functionality is the key to designing a
mobile-friendly website. Factors such as links,
scrolling banners, site navigation and menus
should all be designed with thumbs in mind. This
simply means that all of your site elements need
to work for mobile scrolling, sliding and
tapping. Avoid the viewer needing to pinch
content is too small if pinching is required and
youll only see an increase in site abandonment.
On mobile-friendly websites simplicity rules
place all crucial information such as user
account functions, search bar, key promotions,
popular content, main menu and logo above the
fold. Remember that with mobile less is more.
This mantra also ensures that information is able
to be spaced out to avoid wrong clicking.
Mobile searchers will only tolerate a load time
of up to five seconds so avoid heavy graphics and
content that slow load times and annoy
viewers. A few extra tips Use video wisely,
keep clips to under two minutes they are more
likely to be watched and they not interfere with
load times too much. If you run a mobile version
of your website and a PC version rather than
being fully mobile responsive, never use the term
full site when referring to the PC site. This
term implies that the mobile version is
incomplete and viewers are not receiving all the
information that PC users are. Use geolocation
technology to direct users to their nearest
store, provide information in local times and
currencies, or to offer targeted
promotions. Provide the choice to check out as a
guest rather than an account holder to speed up
the checkout process. Use lists and bullet points
rather than long-form content to allow viewers to
quickly and easily scan and identify the
information they are seeking.
To learn more about designing websites to be more
mobile-friendly, contact the team at Website
Design Centre . Categories Website Design

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