Mobiles and apps
The extent to which you design for mobiles and tablet devices depends on your audience.
It may be crucial, it may be useful or it may be of little value.
The question is: can you get actions or start or engage in conversations via mobile?
Content is consumed in different ways, depending upon a user's situation, screen size and bandwidth.
The key success factor is user experience in a given context.
On mobile, page load times and 'getting to the point' are much more critical than on desktop.
The simple, but often wrong, solution is to make websites "responsive".
"Responsive" means that content scales to the size and orientation of screens by shrinking, expanding and reformatting.
In theory, this provides a satisfactory experience for all users. In practice, it rarely provides a great experience for anyone.
The fact is that one size does not fit all.
Principles
- Responsive = re-ordering all content for all devices.
- Adaptive = selecting part content for mobiles and perhaps tablets.
- Native = apps created for mobiles and tablets.
- Mobile = choosing not to design for mobile.
- Each option has merit, depending upon the context.
- The purpose is to convert visits to actions.
- The user experience determines whether this happens.
Planning
- Is your prospect likely to be engaged on mobile?
- Is your call-to-action likely to happen on mobile?
- What content (part or all) will likely lead prospects to act ?
- How often will prospects visit your website before they act?
- If this is infrequent, will they download/use an app?
- Should your strategy be mobile first, desktop first or balanced?
- What is working for your competitors/peers?
Pitfalls
- Responsive templates that compromise user experience.
- Being "on mobile" with no plan and little effect.
- Creating an app that is rarely downloaded and never used.
- Trying to compete with social networks rather than dovetailing.
- Poor media choices = page load time blowouts on mobile.
- SEO that fails to leverage geo-location.
- Mobile is an afterthought.
Ready to consider the 3 P's? (Planning, Process and Pitfalls). It's time to start your plan: