Once you’ve installed a responsive template on your site, you may be tempted to think your work is done, but there are a few key elements you need to think through and possibly adjust when considering mobile usability on your website. In order to ensure your mobile viewers have the best experience on your site, consider these five tips:
1. Test your mobile navigation.
Keep in mind that when creating a responsive website, you’re not designing for the device. You’re designing for the user. Regardless of what type of smartphone or tablet is being used to access the site, the ease of use needs to be consistent across all devices.
It may be that you have too many sub-navigation elements to effectively display them all in a single drop-down menu. Perhaps a tabbed menu of major elements or a side-drawer style navigation would provide your users with easier access to content. Check it out for yourself and determine whether the navigation is simplifying the user experience or hindering it.
2. Check all components for mobile compatibility.
Although you may be using a mobile template, not all website components are responsive, so it’s important to test each component on your site to be sure things like image sliders, shopping carts, and other components are easy to navigate on a mobile platform. Testing on a variety of mobile platforms is critical to be sure your content is accessible to all users.
3. Consider your use of images.
When a viewer arrives at your site from a smaller viewport, you’ll obviously want your images to automatically resize to fit the available screen width. In addition to auto-resizing your images, you’ll also want to consider the use of icons instead of large image files. Icons, especially well known and widely accepted symbols can communicate a variety of effective messages to users, while also cutting down on your site’s load time and saving space on the screen.
4. Consider your interaction cues.
When a visitor arrives at your site from a desktop browser, they can easily see what’s clickable by hovering over elements of the page. Without a mouse-over indicator on a mobile device, it’s critical that clickable elements are easily distinguishable from other elements on the page.
5. Keep your primary CTAs front and center.
If you could choose only one call to action for mobile visitors, what would it be? An email subscription, a donation, a signup? Whatever that one element is, you want to be sure that call to action is front and center in your responsive design. Don’t make users scroll to find it. Make sure it’s the first thing users see when they arrive. Furthermore, consider adding an easy to use search field at the top of the page to ensure users can quickly and easily find what they’re looking for, if they came to find something specific.
What are some steps you’ve taken to improve your mobile usability for site visitors? Let us know in the comments below.