05 November 2011

Mobile Website Design

Did you know that in the world today there are more than 2.4 billion mobile phone users, and a thousand more are added every minute!
About 30% of these mobile phone owners (more than 700 million and growing) have browsed the Internet through their mobile phones. This is the reason why mobile Web browsing is predicted to become the next predominant Internet platform.


The Basic Principles of Mobile Website Design

First, you have to know that the Web site design and construction generally used for computer browsers is not compatible with that of mobile phones. For your site to work well on a mobile handset, it must follow the accessibility design guidelines for building mobile Websites which are set by the W3C.
In mobile phones, the technology called the WAP is used for browsing. Because of the limitations of WAP browsers in terms of screen size and allowable download, you will need to strip down your current design.
The easiest way to build your mobile Website is to modify your existing Internet site to make it compatible for mobile handsets. If you decide to do so, expect that there will be big changes in terms of layout, design and construction.

Here are some principles about mobile Web design that you should take note of before proceeding to build one of your own:
  • Websites which make use of tables for the main layout will not look right on mobile phones.
  • Your site must use CSS for the layout to ensure maximum compatibility.
  • It is easiest if your site is coded using either XML or XHTML, with your character encoding set at UTF-8.
  • You have to consider that different mobile phones have different screen sizes. This can be a major headache if you want your mobile Web site design to run on all of them.
  • Remember to put all the most important information that you want mobile users to see on the top of the page. It can be time consuming to browse through a mobile site, not to mention tedious to read through. Make your mobile site design convenient for your consumers.
  • It is difficult to enter text in mobile Web sites. You may want to offer your user the convenience of radio buttons and lists, which they can choose from depending on what they need.
  • If you wish to put images on your mobile Website, it should be in jpeg or gif format.
  • A good mobile Web site design provides back buttons and links. Many phones are not equipped with back buttons, so try to provide one.
  • Keep in mind that the maximum page size for a mobile page is only 20 kilobytes. Make everything fit into that number.
  • Lastly, you should bear in mind that users are actually paying fees to access your mobile Website. Make sure that they are getting their money's worth!

Having a mobile friendly website is especially important for businesses who want to increase their exposure onto a fresh, up-and-coming platform ahead of their closest competitors. However, designing and optimising sites for various mobile platforms is very challenging due to the amount of smart phone platforms available .

 The fact is that people accessing the web via their phone are having to deal with smaller screen and slower connection times, meaning that a site that looks impressive on a PC may lose quality and functionality when accessed with a mobile.

There’s a lot to take into consideration when it comes to this kind of specialist website design development. Sites need to be optimised for all of the latest browsing devices, such as iPhones, iPad, Blackberry and Android platforms (amongst others), which can be a time-consuming process.

 Scream Media is proud to offer affordable solutions when it comes to mobile web development and urges any company lacking a sound mobile presence to get in touch before they lose out on exposure and revenue generated from on-the-go web browsing.

2 comments:

  1. Hello, I love reading through your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation.

    mobile webdesign

    ReplyDelete