The use of mobile phones to access websites for information or purchasing products is a growing trend that cannot be ignored by web developers. It is common to find many people using their mobile phones as the only device through which they access the internet as an alternative to personal computers. In most cases, the display of a website on a personal computer is quite different from that on the screen of a mobile phone, thus making it necessary for web developers to create mobile sites. These sites enable users to have a better experience while browsing the website resulting in increased traffic as well as sales.
So, for a web developer to create or even improve an existing mobile site, it is important that they take note of the following guidelines. These guiding principles are varied and can be used to develop different types of full websites into those that are more mobile friendly.
1. Use Single Columns in the Layout
Most web pages are wide which makes it hard for them to be viewed on the screen of a mobile phone. Even those with wide screens still require a lot of zooming in and out to read text which can be quite annoying. Therefore, it is advisable for web developers to create pages that have single columns that fit the whole screen. The content displayed on the screen should move downwards to make scrolling much easier and it also fits in more information.
2. Use Less Content
Although content is important on websites, its presentation on mobile devices should be as focused as possible. Display content as well as features that are considered high priority so that they fit well within the space on the mobile phone. Having just enough content makes the loading of the site on devices much faster even when the internet connection is slow.
3. Make Navigation Mobile Friendly
The navigation bar on a mobile site should be presented in a way that does not hinder the reading of the content on the page. Web developers have a number of options to choose from when placing the navigation bar on the mobile web page. Some of the popular ones are placing it at the base of the web page, using dropdown links or including “Back” buttons to direct users to other pages.
4. Consider Touch Screen Users
Currently touch screen smart phones are widely used which makes it important for mobile sites to be designed with them in mind. Links on the mobile web pages should be easy to select by tapping and this can be done by using square boxes that are displayed well on the screen. In addition, reduce the amount of text that has to be typed in at certain points on the web page. Typing on mobile phones is much more difficult and is likely to result in a lot of errors, thus making it important to use the avenues that require one to tap or key in the four digit PIN number.
