8 Types of Mobile Friendly Website Design
To achieve a mobile friendly website design that is consistent and smooth in flow. I have shared a few approaches that may help you.
1. Keeping an eye on the context
Take care of the needs of visitors to design a layout. This can be either in the form of performing an action on a site like CTA or asking for email id or number.
So, before moving ahead just sit back and understand what users actually need from you. Based on those requirements, plan a layout that entices them at once towards a purchase on your store.
In order to ensure customer satisfaction, do make note of user friendliness as well as easy navigation also.
2. Deciding the right approach
While creating a mobile friendly website, there are several approaches to consider and each of these delivers a completely unique experience for users:
Responsive:
In this approach, the URL, HTML, and images remain the same whereas CSS gives different rules based on the width of the browser.
Adaptive:
In this approach, the URL remains the same but the server sends different HTML and CSS based on the type of device requesting a page.
Separate Mobile Site:
This is mostly hosted on a subdomain or a subfolder, but it can also use the same URLs as the desktop site.
Out of all these, Responsive is a unified approach that allows creating a similar experience for the user no matter what device the website is being browsed on.
In addition to offering a better user experience, it consolidates your website and eliminates the need for a separate mobile URL.
3. Optimizing images
Images play a vital role in maintaining or degrading the functioning of a website. There are viewers who would just stop returning back to your website if it takes much time to load. To prevent this behavior of a user, you need to ensure that you have images optimized for your device. Compress them as much as possible and display with higher resolution.
Businesses should make use of image optimization tools available that can shrink image size and speed up the load time without affecting its visibility.
4. Pay attention to the Font and Button size
When creating a mobile friendly website, considering the size and design of font size and buttons matter a lot. Keep the ideal size for font size at least 14 px. This font size lends customer an ease while reading the content. Similarly, for labels and forms, a smaller font size of 12 px is suitable.
The same goes for buttons. The bigger is the size of buttons, the better are chances of increase in conversions on the site. So, in general, go for button sizes of 40-44 px.
5. Make your search box easy to find
Looking for any information on mobile devices becomes tiresome because the size of a screen is very small. This calls for a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate search box. It saves users from the hassle of spending time on finding the right piece of information.
This, not only amplifies the user experience but also gives your mobile friendly website a structured appeal. It also makes easier for users to navigate from one page to the other.
6. Addition of videos
Video optimization is a great way to expand the business presence. Adding videos can help you stand out amongst the competition and it also opens up new opportunities for exposure on the web.
They also increase the average time user spends on a given website. The addition of videos also helps build credibility and makes it easier for you to gain that potential trust.
7. Using mobile redirects
Make sure to place redirects in place that can easily be discovered when a visitor is using a mobile device and can direct him/her to the optimized version of the site. This can be done after the site gets launched.
Once the redirects are in place, any mobile user who types in the web address will be redirected directly to the mobile-optimized version of your site.
8. Reduce text entry required for navigation
It is quite difficult to enter text in mobile versions of websites. However, reducing the user text entry and replacing it with buttons can allow viewers select their requirement with ease.
Mobile users do not have access to traditional keyboard or mouse, unlike desktop users. Therefore, it is recommended to incorporate creativity in different ways. This helps viewers in enjoying the same level of experience without having to use small keyboards or frustrating navigation.