The importance of mobiles today is undeniable. In fact according to the latest Digital Consumer Trends report from Deloitte 92% of all Australians have a smartphone, and the majority of 18-44 year olds use their phone as their main device for searching the web. This growth is only likely to increase, especially amongst older demographics as they begin to become more tech savvy. Therefore, it’s important that all businesses operating online provide a positive mobile user experience for their visitors.
Exploring Mobile UX
As the name suggests, mobile UX focuses on providing the best possible experience for a user on a mobile device. This focus on mobile first design can offer several benefits for businesses including greater SEO performance and higher engagement from potential customers as a result of a more efficiently designed mobile website.
Mobile screen devices are much smaller than a laptop or tablet, meaning it is important to ensure content is easy to navigate and read. You can help to manage this by either utilising a responsive template or theme that adapts based on how the user is viewing the website or it may involve creating a custom mobile site design depending on the requirements of your website. To find out the best solution for your business speak to a web design professional to ensure your website will be mobile ready.
Let’s take a look at a few tips for effective mobile UX design below:
Tips for Mobile UX
Navigation
Being able to easily navigate a website is one of the most important considerations. If a potential user is unable to find the product or service they are after, then they’re likely to leave. When it comes to navigation the main focus should be to keep it simple. Aim to provide the least amount of steps for someone to find the page, product or service that they are after. To help ensure this, focus on a navigational hierarchy to determine which pages need to be the most easily accessible (least amount of clicks) for users. Finally, make the navigation clear, easy to use and consistent across the website to avoid confusion.
Content and Visual Hierarchy
Hierarchies are prevalent across a number of different aspects when looking at websites. Two of these areas are content and visual hierarchy, which work hand in hand to ensure the best possible user experience. Both of these aspects work in tandem to ensure that the most important content is seen by a potential user through implementation of visual hierarchy of content, and they can also aid in providing feedback to the user. For example, a loading indicator can showcase a page is being prepared compared to a blank black or white page which could confuse the user.
Website Loading Speed
The faster a website loads the better, especially when it comes to mobile. In fact for many search engines, a faster website can have a positive effect on SEO. Firstly check your webpages current load speed which can be tested through various tools such as Google’s Page Speed Insights. If the website is quite slow to load there are different areas that can be optimised for improvement. For instance, it might be important to strip out unnecessary parts of a site, in theory the lighter your website the faster the load time. Therefore ensure that unnecessary media is removed, outdated plugins deactivated and any excess or obsolete data and scripting removed.
Test Your Design
As with any new online strategy or developments it is important to test and review a website’s mobile UX. This is not only to ensure that everything is working correctly, but also that the website is performing at its optimal capacity. This means that it is loading quickly, navigation is fluid and seamless and the call to actions are appearing at the right cues.
To find out more about how you can ensure the very best mobile UX design for your business’s website, talk to the team at Redline Digital today.