by Louis Harwood

Design thoughts for your website on mobile handsets

An increasingly large proportion of internet browsing is now being done using mobile hand-held devices such as the iPhone or the Nexus One. The latest technology means that it is now easier than ever to view websites in almost the same way on mobile phones and iPods as it is using a laptop or desktop computer.

Browsing on the move

It’s easy to see the attraction – office workers who’ve been sitting at a computer all day, don’t want to spend their evening doing the same. It’s a lot more fun to buy a new pair of trainers, browse holiday destinations or check out a favourite blog on an iPhone during the commute home. If you’ve used one of the latest mobile phones to access the web, the chances are you’ve been tricked into thinking the web access is exactly the same as when you’re using a computer, especially on devices such as the iPhone, where Safari makes the experience very similar to that on a computer.

However, this is probably because you’ve been visiting sites which have been specially tailored to work well on mobile devices. So what are the key tricks to making sure mobile users can have a pleasant experience when they visit your website? Firstly, the screen size is obviously much smaller than on a regular computer, meaning that layouts designed for computer screens can come out looking clunky and confusing on a mobile.

The best way round this is to design a layout specifically for the mobile. Secondly, make sure the links can be selected easily, by ensuring they are large enough, and far enough apart. Another tip is to make sure they change colour when scrolled over. Thirdly, as with all browsing, if your page doesn’t load quickly enough, you are likely to lose visitors who will simply turn to the next page in the search results. Research shows that browsers are becoming more and more demanding in how long they are willing to wait for a page to load.

Load Speed

Ensure you test loading speeds on various mobile devices and if necessary, tailor your content to speed things up. Finally, make sure users can enter information easily. Typing can be difficult on mobiles so offer users the choice of selecting from a drop down list, or use autofill so that they only have to enter the first few letters.

If you’ve gone to the trouble of having a business website designed professionally, geared to drive traffic to your site with the latest pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation, interesting and relevant content to engage visitors, all packaged in a great-looking finish that perfectly demonstrates your business’ style and concept, you will already know how important the website package is from a sales, marketing and customer service point of view.

Make sure you complete the job by ensuring mobile browsers get just as high quality an experience.

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