Designing for Mobile
My company motto is “putting business on the ‘net” and I think it is important that I start this article with that in mind.
My motto is not – cutting edge technology now – not is it – latest gadgets for the future – I believe that for my clients it is better to use tried and tested technologies when they’ve been tried and tested and not before.
We all like to ‘jump onto a bandwagon’, but I’d like to assure you that every time I recommend you jump onto a bank wagon, it’s not just a whim. It fact it is quite a serious recommendation.
What is the Mobile Web and what does it mean to you?
Essentially, all the predictions are that people will use their computers less and their mobiles more, whereas we’ve just gotten used to sitting at our computers to check email, now people want to check their email in the train and on the move. All this is almost being forced upon us by the likes of the iPhone, so it’s now a reality and no longer a minority techie thing.
Mobile has arrived and it is changing how we do things.
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| A typical example from a real client of mine (Mobile Traffic) |
This will effect us all because it means our websites will be accessed via Mobile and if we give the wrong impression that will effect how our customers and clients see us. If our competitors do this better than us, they will get the business and not us.
Let’s think hypothetically for a moment. We’ve brought the latest Eco-Friendly car we can, it’s fully connected to the Internet and has GPS and all the gizmo’s, but we’re low on Petrol (or whatever it is we will be fuelling the car with). The on-board computer will tell us where to buy the cheapest petrol and it will tell us how to get there. We will follow it’s instructions. Now if your petrol station is all hooked up, that’s great customers will come your way. But if now… how will people find you.
Real day examples are everywhere, if a person considers using your services or buying your products, he’ll subconsciously compare your website to another, he’ll see colour, words, photos, price and so on. If he does that on a Mobile Phone – where will you stand? How will you rate?
It’s a big question and the simple answer is you need to get organised so that you can answer people when they try to see your website on their Mobile Phones.
Top 10 Tips for Mobile
These suggestions can be taken individually, but the idea is to get you thinking:
- People have different needs on their iPhone, they usually want to contact you, so put your telephone number on prominently;
- People often want directions – so make them clear on your mobile website;
- Don’t just repeat you main website on an iPhone it will be too small, it’s also unreliable on the many other types of phones people have, (Nokia, Samsung, Android etc);
- If selling products – narrow down the information, make it easier for people to buy it, they probably already know what they are looking for;
- If offering a Service – make it compelling the likelihood is that people will have less time to read your website;
- Navigation – put this at the bottom – make it rock simple, forget drop down menus, or anything fancy;
- Avoid animation or anything moving, respect peoples bandwidth, they do not want to download a Movie on their iPhone, it would be cripplingly expensive;
- News can take a back seat – unless your news is central to your service, people are less worried about frequent updates – people want specific information, not general;
- Embrace Sharing – make everything you offer shareable – people often want to look something up for someone else and they need to be able to share that information;
- Design for Mobile – if you’re going to do it then do it properly;