Based
on a recent study by Mongoose
Metrics,
only 9% of all the websites in the world are optimized for mobile devices. And
yet more and more people are viewing sites on smartphones and tablets. That
means your site is probably failing a large part of your audience.
So
you need to make your site mobile-ready. Think it’s easy? Nope. You have to
rethink everything.
Rethink Design
A
lot of clients I speak to think that “mobile optimization” means just shrinking
their site to fit on a smaller screen. There’s much more to it. Because of the
different needs of a mobile user and the different experience of a phone, the
entire design has to change. This means bringing in your creative director (or
using our fantastic one) to craft a new look and
feel for the site, while keeping your branding. Seem like a big step? It’s only
the beginning…
Rethink Navigation
Everything
must be scaled down for a mobile site. Only the most important sections should
remain, and they should all be prominently on the homepage. Compare the Famers
Insurance website to its mobile site. The many options and documents have been
reduced to just four items: reporting a claim, paying their bill, finding an
agent, and browsing products. If you want to ensure users have access to more
information, you can always include a link to your full site.
Farmers Insurance: From this... |
...to this. |
Rethink Text
There’s
only so much room on a mobile screen, so try to keep text to a minimum. Most of
the navigation should be done through buttons, large words, and clear icons. Look
at AT&T's mobile careers site. Notice how they divide their departments by
icons, with very small text below. On a “normal” website, these options could
be simple text links. But for a mobile site, you should never make your
visitors squint.
AT&T Careers emphasizes icons over text |
Rethink Experience
See?
The
mobile experience is very different from a desktop one. Big graphic
files
or videos, which usually aren’t an issue, must now be weighed against
the time
it takes for them to load. Avoid Flash animation, since most mobile
devices
don’t currently support Flash. And different mobile operating systems
are like different web browsers; what looks great on an iPhone may not
look good on a
Samsung Galaxy.
A
great example of a totally “rethought” mobile site is Loews Hotels. The
site uses the phone’s GPS to find the nearest hotel and offers four
simple
choices: Visit, call, map, or book now. Navigation on the homepage is a
simple
scrolling menu with photos, short descriptions, and buttons large enough
for a
thumb. Choosing “Contact Us” at the top offers the option to “Click here
to
book through a mobile device,” in case users missed it. It’s a clean,
simple,
informative mobile experience. No wonder it won the Web Marketing
Association’s
award for Outstanding Achievement in
Mobile.
Loews Hotels' award-winning mobile site |
Want to learn more
about creating a great mobile site? Use your smartphone as a phone (gasp!) and
call us at 212-947-1001.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.