Top 31 Principles of Mobile Website Design

We are living in a mobile era: more and more people access the internet on their phones. As a result, improving the mobile website design is a must if you want to provide a satisfying experience for your customers. 

Mobile website design is so important because without optimisation, your site might even be unusable on small screens. At the same time, Google wants creators to adjust to the mobile world and penalises those that don’t. 

As a result, many businesses realise the necessity of mobile website design. While web design agencies can also help, Market Inspector created an infographic about the 31 crucial principles of mobile website design, so that you are fully aware of what makes a good, adaptive website.

Mobile website design can bring many benefits to your business: improved user experience, increased traffic, faster website loading time, increased conversion rate, improved SEO, and decreased bounce rate. 

To make your website mobile-friendly and to deliver the best user experience, you need to focus on the following aspects:

There are a couple of things that impact how your mobile website works. Firstly, when working on the perfect mobile website, you should think about the home page. It should be easy for the user to navigate through the content. 

Simple designs always work well. Make the most frequent tasks of the users easily accessible and the menus short and simple. Make a fresh start straightforward by a quick return to the home page. A clear, one-column layout will help present the content in a simple and approachable way.

Call-to-action buttons located in the centre will help the user convert without an effort. At the same time, make the users aware of the promotions, but don’t spoil their experience with elements dragging too much attention.

The users try to find products, services, and information through searching your website. They should not waste their time trying to guess how the search works. Universal as well as category-specific filters will help live up to users' expectations. Allow multiple selections and tailor the search options to the user's behaviour. You might also consider introducing voice search which is a comfortable alternative to typing. 

Conversion is important for your business but you should not spoil the users’ experience by imposing, for example, a subscription pop-up. If your mobile website design is good enough, satisfied users will love your website and will be more willing to spend money. 

Make the users feel they can dive into your content before they need to make a decision. This way, you will show that they have a choice and that the conversion happens on their terms.

Keep in mind that the users will be more willing to check out if they are allowed to shop as guests. Studies show that visitors tend to make fast purchases if they can interact with the e-commerce website without signing up because the order process is quicker that way.

Use call-to-action buttons for the users’ complex tasks, which will increase the conversion. Think about what questions the users might have in mind and design the buttons accordingly.

Because some users search for products on their mobile phone but want to confirm their decision by looking it up on a computer as well, allow the users to finish tasks at another time or on another device. 

You should optimise the process of filling in forms by reducing data entry. Use efficient data entry methods like auto-fill, which prefills the forms with already-known information. People hate filling in forms, in particular on mobile phones. That is why the process should be as easy as possible.

Add a calendar to your site forms. Your users should have a calendar just in front of them, which will prevent them from leaving the website just to check a date. 

One of the most important aspects of mobile website design is responsiveness, which makes your website look good on any screen size or kind of device. However, the necessity of this adjustment leads to higher website design cost. 

Responsive design allows you to disable pinch-to-zoom because content and images are in a proper form and size, that is, visible and readable by default. Also, use scalable vector graphics which allow playing with size without compromising the quality. Furthermore, unlike horizontal scrolling, vertical scrolling will make it easier for the user to go through the content. 

Responsive images will make your website look good on devices with various screen sizes. At the same time, images that extend when tapped will give the users the opportunity to see the details in the photo.

Don’t forget about optimised markup and styling. Compression of HTML, CSS, and scripts will make your page load faster.

The aim of mobile website design is to make the users’ lives easier. There are several small things that make viewing your website on a small screen more pleasant. 

Don’t overwhelm the user with multiple browser windows. For that reason, call-to-action buttons should open in the same tab or window, not a new one for each button press. 

Tapping is the key way that users interact on portable devices nowadays. Therefore, use tappable instead of clickable elements, keeping in mind the size of the average user’s thumb. 

Research shows that users tend to leave websites when they are asked for their location already on the page load. Make the users feel comfortable on your website and request the location only when the users indicate it. 

Usability also means compatibility. The website should be able to provide all the features on all devices. Take into consideration that some users have an unstable and slow internet connection. You can improve users’ experience by retaining data, minimising page size, and reducing the number and size of the images. All of this will make it easier and speedier to browse your website. 

Finally, you can improve the users’ experience through device features such as calls, messages, opening apps directly from the browser, and the like.

More and more people access the internet through mobile devices than through desktops and the time people spend on mobile devices increases drastically. For that reason, mobile website design is crucial to deliver the best user experience.