Understanding Mobile Design

Many businesses understand the importance of mobile design and choose a reactive site when setting up a website for the first time. Unfortunately this is where the design ends, some believe this is enough to provide a good mobile experience to the customer. It’s not.

A mobile responsive site is a great option when designing a website but remember, this is a computer shrinking the pages and not a real person. The way the site is condensed can drastically affect the user experience and when the majority of people now buy through a mobile device, it can mean curtains for a business.

For example:

There’s an ecommerce website that is an absolute pleasure to use on a PC. When condensed it looks fine until you try to use it. Those tiny pop ups now obliterate the screen making it impossible to click on the product and the images are squashed so much that only the really dedicated would buy based on the picture.

The checkout process puts most people off as it opens a new window for PayPal which then leaves the customer open to distraction while making it impossible to navigate back to the page. The drop down menu never goes away and browsing becomes a real test of patience, while the terms and conditions dominate the page instead of the saleable products.

This all sounds like a nightmare but these mobile sites are actually live with some of the biggest brands. Millions of pounds are being lost simply because of annoying pop ups or over zealous menu items.

What’s the Solution to Poor Mobile Design?

The solution is actually easier than you may imagine. You could, of course, invest in an APP for the business which would make navigation a dream for the customer. This is expensive though and also poses the problem of enticing the visitors to download the APP. Do you choose Apple or Android or both? Do you have the budget to market the new APP?

In fact, the solution is a lot simpler and cheaper than that. Create a team of testers and listen to feedback. That’s all it takes. Ask users how they navigated through your mobile site and tackle the problems as the results come in.

You can also talk to your PPC company and ask how people are interacting with your site. Are they abandoning checkout more on mobile compared to PC visits? Your AdWords agency has the answers.