As of February 2024, over 65% of online traffic came from mobile devices (source). This makes it more crucial than ever that your website is optimized to provide the best mobile experience. Most people in the field are familiar with responsive web design, the practice of ensuring a website displays well across a wide range of screen sizes, but there are also a number of other aspects to take into consideration.
While traditional PCs typically use a mouse or trackpad to move a cursor around the screen, mobile devices tend to use touch screens. While this means mobile users can tap directly on what they mean to interact with, the size of the human finger gives them less precise control over exactly where they are tapping.
For a good user experience on touch screens, you should ensure that interactive elements, like buttons or form fields, are large enough to account for this potential inaccuracy. Additionally, if many of these elements are placed next to each other they should each be given enough space to help users avoid accidental misclicks. If multiple small controls are adjacent to each other on a page, it can result in frustration when ambiguously placed taps cause behavior that the user did not intend.
If the design of your website contains components that reveal information on hover, like an image link that reveals a title and description, it might be a good idea to think about how users interact with that element on mobile devices. The lack of a cursor means that the hover state doesn't work the same way in mobile browsers as it does on desktop.
Typically, mobile browsers enable the hover state when an element is tapped. This is fine in some cases but can easily cause problems if that element is something that also has behavior on click, such as a link. The solution will depend on the component, but making sure that important information or functionality is not exclusive to hover states can help make the mobile experience flow more smoothly.
Due to the difference between using a cursor and using a touch screen, the way that users interact with native desktop applications and native mobile apps is often quite different. Thinking about the design of your website and how users interact with analogous components in native apps can help give mobile users a better experience. The details will depend on the design and functionality of your specific website, but a common example of this might be allowing a finger swipe from the side to display a sidebar navigation menu.
If your website, or a specific page on it, is something that users might want to save as a bookmark on their phone it might be a good idea to consider setting it up as a Progressive Web App. If configured properly, this allows a user to add your website to their home screen with a custom icon and can provide an experience much closer to that of a native app.
For more information on Progressive Web Apps, check out our recent video on the topic.
Photo Credit: Adobe Firefly.