A Basic Guide To Design for Mobile Experience

Mobile phone usage has significantly increased all over the world and anyone who is a graphic or web designer should consider how to design websites to suit mobile users. Many mobile users now access the Internet on their mobile devices. There are about 5 billion phones in the world. Out of this, 1.08 billion are smart phones.

Android has the highest market share with 46.9%, while iPhone follows with a market share of 28.7%. Nine out of ten smart phone users use their phone on a daily basis and the most popular smart phone activity is texting, followed by Internet browsing and playing games. This presents a new opportunity for graphic designers and website builders.

Businesses are also seeing the wisdom in building mobile websites. The need to learn how to build websites for the mobile experience therefore becomes an imperative for any forward thinking designer.
There are resources available over the web that offer basic instructions for designing websites that are compatible with mobile devices. These can be helpful in getting you started. But here are some basic principles to consider when designing websites for a great mobile experience.

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• Designing Websites for a Better Mobile User Experience

 

 

User-Friendly Interface

First and foremost, every mobile website should be designed in such a way that it is user-friendly. If it is complicated, users are not likely to have a good experience. An easy design interface is critical to having a good user experience.

Making the interface user-friendly can never be over-emphasized. The designer should bear in mind that there is a relationship that exists between users and their mobile devices. Many people are attached to their devices and this is why most of them even have security codes. Designing Websites for a Better Mobile User Experience.

Screen Size

Mobile websites should be designed to offer features that make video streaming and other screen displays a pleasure, and one way to achieve this is to ensure that the design fits the screen perfectly well.

Mobile devices are naturally designed with a small screen size. The users expect to enjoy all the features as if they are using a computer. Different design mechanisms should try to accommodate different mobile devices in the best way possible. Different applications should also be accommodated in the mobile experience.

Data Transfer

You should have a simple interface that makes data transfer as easy as possible. People build their data over time and therefore making a simple interface that facilitates data transfer from their emails to their mobile devices or vice versa will be an advantage. Check How to Design for Your Target Audience.

One of the most significant features that people would not want to lose is their contact address data. Mobile phone manufacturers provide a feature for data to be stored on the phone or SIM card. But people may want to transfer such data to their emails. A feature to facilitate such a process will greatly enhance the mobile user experience.

Fast Browsing Interface

When people go online, they want everything quick. Statistics show that website visitors will quickly turn away if, after 60 seconds or less, they do not have a good experience with the site they have visited. The situation could even be worse with mobile usage.

The designer’s duty is therefore to design a mobile website that is sticky, yet fast enough to load. This can be done by compressing files for the various interfaces. Mobile users want to browse with speed on their phones. Anything below that, they will be turned away.

Relevant Applications and Plug-Ins

Another principle is that, apart from building a great user-experience website, your design should be able to have many applications that are relevant to the mobile user. The applications should be suited to mobile use. Accessing of pages should be easy, and downloading and browsing features should all add up to a great user experience. You can also make some plug-ins available so that their usage of the website will be greatly enhanced.

You can have tools that alert and notify customers of special offers as well as new products that are available in your store.

Graphics

While graphics shouldn’t be that fanciful, they must appear colorful and relevant to the theme or content of the site. The problem with graphics is that if over-used, they can slow the website and make the user experience bizarre. Tips for Designing iPhone Apps and Web Pages

Content

Content may be the most important thing on any website. Mobile users would want to have quality content on their mobile websites as if they were using a desktop Pc. But the problem is that it may be practically impossible to have the same content on a main website on a mobile website. Even if you are able, the user experience may be negatively affected. The secret in this is having the most important content displayed first on the mobile version.

Make the content as mobile-friendly as possible. To have an efficient and easy-to-navigate mobile website that works, with a great user-experience, you should understand your target audience.
Most people also do not enjoy the experience of having to zoom in and out and scroll up and down all the time. Mobile content should therefore be visible and the design should be quite easy to navigate.