1 - Include bigger buttons for links and widgets
You must do this to make it easy to navigate your website with a touch screen. Bigger links means fewer mistakes when the user uses a finger to click a link. Turn your links into buttons and widgets to make life a little easier for the visitors to your site.
2 - Minimize the use of animations
Animations do look nice and are fun on mobile websites, but they soon lose their charm after extended use. So, it is better if you leave them out all together so that your user does not have to slowly become sick of seeing them. Plus, they weigh down and slow down your mobile website.
3 - Keep your pages lightweight
As you already know, mobile devices are not able to connect as quickly as desktop computers. Mobile devices do not have access to very quick Internet, so you need to make your pages lightweight to accommodate for the slower Internet speeds that most mobile devices have.
4 - Make it SEO friendly for smaller key-phrases
When you design your website, you need to keep SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind. You need to make your pages and your structure suitable for mobile SEO. And, you should remember that mobile websites often fair better if they use smaller key phrases.
5 - Consider allowing for swipe page changes
This is a great little function where you can change the page of a website by swiping right or left. It is a little as if you are reading a magazine and are flipping pages. It makes using your mobile website a lot more fun and user friendly. It certainly beats having to click links and wait.
6 - Consider the UI guidelines for each operating system
Different mobile devices have different operating systems, and each operating system has a preferred user interface. You should look up the guidelines that each publish for their operating system, so that your website is easy to use on each person’s Smartphone. This is so that you can take advantage of different operating system functions such as duel-touch, swipe, panning and zooming.
7 - Think about backwards compatibility
This means think about making your website accessible and useable for people who are using older versions of website browsers and older versions of mobile operating systems. But, do not think about it too much, as it may restrict the functions of your website. Sure, you want people with older operating systems to enjoy your website, but if that means leaving out functions that the modern market demands then it may not be worth it.
8 - Make navigation more about swipes and taps and less about words
People do not like typing things into their Smartphone, so it is better to base your navigation system on tapping the screen and swiping the screen. Give people the option of not having to enter any text into the device. By all means, give them the opportunity to use a search bar, but make it one of many options they can choose to navigate with.
9 - Test your designs for usability and bugs
Testing should be something you do anyway, but remember to test for usability as well as bugs. You need to test to see if the device is useable on different platforms, with different web browsers and different operating systems. You need to check how well it works with different screen sizes. And, you need to check for any bugs that may not appear on some browsers but that may appear on others.
10 - Stick to three layers of navigation
This is based upon the principle that people are less amenable to multiple layers of navigation on mobile devices. There are lots of reasons for this, most of which revolve around usability. So, keep your navigation to three layers, which means having a maximum of two sub categories. This may be difficult in some cases and you may have to create a navigation system that is seriously different from your desktop computer navigation.
Author’s bio:
The article was provided by Sonia Jackson who writes for http://www.cool-essays.com. She answers all your questions about writing and editing.
Author’s bio:
The article was provided by Sonia Jackson who writes for http://www.cool-essays.com. She answers all your questions about writing and editing.
