Designing a Mobile Web Site

Design is an important element of any competitive software in the world, where everyone can offer the same service, but the good design is the differentiator. Users usually want to look at beautifully designed pages and their confidence in the software product is higher if it is well designed and reliable. How many clients would buy an iPhone just for its features? There are other phones that provide similar or better features, but users would like to have an iPhone because of its excellent design. Everyone now knows that a mobile Web user has different goals while accessing Web content. Different mobile devices have different capabilities and the designers must take care of that while designing their mobile website.

There are many trends in Web design that are classified as Web 2.0 sites such as using CSS in design, good metaphors, good colors that reflect the business while enriching the design. The successful Web designer is the designer who can employee all the above tools to reflect the current business language and to make it easy for users to access information when needed by few clicks. Below are some tips for designing a mobile website that should be taken in consideration when going for mobile Web.

• Great mobile sites start with function over form

Mobile users tend to look for mobile web sites that address a need (entertainment, productivity, and communication are the most popular). Therefore, it is imperative that design serves to facilitate the underlying functional requirements of the site.

• Performance is most desirable

Mobile users have a bewildering number of choices for interactive engagement. Performance is the easiest and best way to stand out. Users have no tolerance for slow performance.

• Simplicity

Mobile web sites must be driven from a simple idea or concept and then execute flawlessly against that concept. Mobile web sites that quickly communicate simple and compelling value to consumers have a much higher success rate than those sites that do not.

• Don’t build an app when a site can do

Mobile apps add a vast amount of management complexity, so it doesn’t make sense to use mobile apps for what a site can do. Mobile web sites avoid all of the development overhead for mobile apps while allowing for a much faster path to execution.

• Engage the design team early and often

Despite the technical challenges of mobile execution, sites still begin and end with designers.

• Balance design elements to drive performance

Mobile devices are very under powered compared to traditional computers, so the performance impact of design elements is even more exacerbated on mobile devices.

• Define brands in the user interface

The user interface should reflect the brand’s identity. Brand awareness in the design process increases user recognition, leverages existing user loyalty, and results in enhanced user satisfaction.

• Identify and address core users

Mobile is inherently more selective than the general public Web. This is why it is vital that mobile sites be specifically developed to address distinct user profiles and use cases.

• Optimize design for perceived performance

The sad truth is that no matter how well a web site is implemented, the mobile ecosystem remains unreliable. Carriers, locations, and devices can all have a pronounced effect on mobile Web performance.  Therefore, it is critical to identify those areas of potential performance degradation such as data fetching & calculations and then develop design strategies to minimize the user performance impact of a slowdown.

• Balance design priorities with performance requirements

Mobile web sites have to perform well, look great, and deliver significant user value on underpowered computers that use tiny screens with limited bandwidth. The success or failure of mobile websites is most often attributed to how well these two disciplines are balanced.

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