Is Your Mobile Website User-Friendly?
When deciding to add a mobile site to your existing website there are some important factors to consider. First of all, hire a reputable design company, even using the same one that designed your main website so you can integrate both. People that visit will know and trust your brand and products if they’ve visited before.
Dig a little deeper to understand why users visit your site, even take a look at what similar sites are doing with their mobile presence. For a homebuilder website, they may want to find information about the neighborhoods you build in and homes you have for sale. Getting them quick and easy access to browse the most important areas is crucial. Make sure they have a way to always contact, email or text someone for more information.
Remember that mobile users are not captive like computer users are, so context of use is important to consider. Context is about the environment and conditions of usage, including distractions, multitasking, motion, lighting conditions and poor connectivity. By keeping these in mind, it is important to design for these factors in order to have a decent mobile user experience.
The two major objectives when designing a mobile site are screen size and simple navigation. Make sure that the mobile site is flexible and the design will adapt to small and large screens, even when the orientation of the phone is changed. Such a small screen needs an even more simplified navigation that is intuitive. It is important to reduce the number of pages, categories and levels while arranging based on priority.
Once your mobile site is live, it is important to track its usage through analytics and make sure that users are getting a good experience out of using it. Occasionally evaluate your mobile site against competitors and identify any changes or additions that could be made to keep your mobile site as updated as possible.
