Why Your Mobile Web Site Stinks: A Lesson in Usability

Anger, frustration, and bouts of hateful rage – these are the emotions most mobile website evoke. Alright, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but the reality is that most users find mobile sites inaccessible, cumbersome and awkward to use. We’ve all been to site that took forever to load, had tiny buttons, or even pop-ups that hindered moving through the site.

Not to overstate the obvious, but all these scenarios are not good. It is a necessity to have your website mobile friendly, particularly since 2020, Google (and other search engines) are indexing mobile first.

Rookie Mistakes of Mobile Websites

Ineffective mobile sites are:

• Too busy in their designs;
• Too convoluted in their functionality; and
• Not built correctly.

The Cure for Lame Mobile Websites

The solutions to these issues are easy to resolve with a team that knows how.

The quickest (and correct) answer is Responsive Web Design. This essentially means that, using the same code, your website adapts to any and all devices that it is used on. Yet again, Google recommends Responsive Web Design because it’s the easiest design pattern to implement and maintain. 

The general overview answers are:

• Form follows function;
• Less is more; and
• Know your build platform.

Form follows function

This is Design 101. On a mobile platform, you want to keep the branding that is developed from your main “full” site and concentrate it down to a healthy, condensed light version.

Mobile site usability depends on adherence to constraints. Some examples of this may be pixel height of buttons and viewing area of the screen. The formation of a good mobile web design will follow the function of its need on a cellular device.

Less is more

This ties in directly to the design, but it also bridges the divide between design and functionality. Keep it simple. Don’t make your user deal with awkward hovers or menus. The more you can refine down the functionality, the better it will work. Some suggestions include removing unnecessary graphics or arbitrary imagery.

Know your platform

If built properly, it will be used. Web standard compliancy still applies on mobile designs. Make sure you have a proper auto-detection script to pull in the mobile version.

You have the potential of losing 4/5ths of your users if not. And always remember: Don’t make the user work hard to get what they want.

Conclusion

We can go over even finer details like, but not limited to, other plagued problems of a non-mobile website taking forever to load; the navigation of the site being non-functional; text being too small; contact forms being a disaster (literally affecting conversions); and Calls-to-Action being weak; etc. but more than likely, you get the gist.

Update your site. Make it responsive. PaperStreet knows how to help.