An increasing number of internet users are transitioning from desktop computers to mobile devices for browsing and shopping purposes. Responsive web design allows the creation of websites that function equally well across various platforms. However, responsive design is just one aspect of mobile user experience optimization strategies.
To achieve true performance optimization, it is necessary to explore alternative options. This is the reason why there is a significant focus on creating websites with a mobile-first approach. In simpler words, mobile-first implies that the design and content of your site are primarily optimized for mobile users.
Having said that, the purpose of this post is not to create a brand new website. Rather, we will examine some essential design principles for mobile-first approaches and explore technical aspects to enhance the user experience for mobile users.
1. Design with Mobile in Mind
The web was primarily designed to cater to desktop users, as it showcases the true advancements in technology on a large, visually appealing screen. However, with the emergence of smartphones and other mobile devices, it is necessary to embrace the idea of prioritizing mobile-first design.
In addition to incorporating responsive design, what other design elements should you include in your mobile-first web designs?
- Prioritization. Mobile screens are limited to the available display space. Also, mobile screens present content in a vertical manner as opposed to a much wider — horizontal — structure for desktops. This means that you must design using prioritization. Which elements are of utmost importance for users to see? If there are CTA buttons, how easy is it to see them for the mobile user?
- Content first. Color second. You can do some interesting things with mobile design, but certainly not in the scope of desktop design. So, give way to content first. Make your copy and other content parts easily readable and accessible. A mobile screen is much less forgiving of distracting visual elements.
- Easy navigation. On a mobile device, you can’t just click anywhere and return to the homepage. Unless, of course, you plan for this type of navigation ahead of time. And you should. Experiment with Scroll-to-Top widgets but also seamless sticky headers whenever possible.
If you find yourself in a cafe or at an airport waiting for a flight, softly tap someone on their shoulder and kindly request them to check your website for you. Afterwards, simply relax and listen to their feedback. You may often be amazed by how others perceive the user experience of your website.
2. Resource Optimization
Do you frequently use visuals purely because you prefer them, rather than for UX purposes? This does occur, and if you’re planning to be creative, it’s beneficial to comprehend the functioning of media optimization. The largest consumers of bandwidth on web pages are visual components such as photos, illustrations, icons, and videos.
Although there is no universally mandated web page size, it is commonly understood that reducing web page size results in quicker load times. Therefore, how can you reduce the size of your visual content to save some kilobytes or even megabytes?
- Resize your images. Sounds simple, right? Instead, full-size photos should be provided as alternative links when appropriate. Resizing can shave off up to 80% of the total image size, depending on your required dimensions. For mobile devices, though, there’s never a reason to go above the 600-700px range at most.
- Reduce file size with compression. Image compression/optimization is the process of using third-party software to reduce the number of colors present in an image. This can be done to a degree that your photos don’t lose their innate quality but can have their file size reduced drastically. If you need help with compressing images, look no further than our comprehensive roundup of image compression tools.
- Explore alternative file formats. Everyone has heard of PNG and JPEG file formats. After all, they are the de facto image standards on the web. But, not for long. The latest and greatest tech in digital image delivery revolves around WebP and SVG file formats. SVG’s, for example, can automatically scale to screen-size, reducing the number of resources needed to load specific visual components.
Designing on impulse without considering the long-term effects of your decisions is not ideal for user experience optimization on mobile-first. Opting for a mindful approach, on the other hand, enables you to construct with mobile users in mind right from the beginning.
When it comes to intuitive mobile design, you can avoid using the same visual elements for your mobile designs. Swapping out a few background images with color backgrounds on mobile devices will not negatively impact the user experience. Constantly search for ways to save even the smallest amount of bandwidth.
3. Test Your Site Using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool
Before undertaking any additional actions, it is advisable to assess the current state of your site’s mobile-friendliness. This assessment will enable you to focus on the particular areas of your site that require attention and provide valuable guidance on enhancing its performance.
An effective method to accomplish this is by accessing your website on various devices. Utilize your personal smartphone or tablet and observe the appearance and user experience. By conducting this evaluation, you can assess loading times, the functionality of the design on smaller screens, readability of the content, and the ease of navigation.
You can further enhance your thinking process by using a specialized testing tool. Luckily, Google offers a free tool named the Mobile-Friendly Test, which allows you to determine if your website meets its criteria for mobile pages.
If the page you are testing is mobile-friendly, the tool will provide a positive outcome. Nevertheless, if Google identifies potential enhancements, it will indicate the modifications you can implement to enhance the mobile user experience.
Even if your site receives a generally positive result, it may encounter difficulties loading specific assets. In such instances, a Page loading issues notification will be displayed. By clicking on this notification, you will be presented with a list of assets that the testing tool failed to load on mobile devices.
At this moment, you can address each mentioned issue sequentially. For instance, you can modify your robots.txt file to grant Google permission to access restricted files or rectify any redirection errors.
4. Use Custom CSS to Make Your Website Responsive
When it comes to making your site mobile-friendly, a little CSS knowledge can take you a long way in implementing responsive web design.
Media queries (or responsive breakpoints) allow you to use CSS to implement the concept of ‘media query’ ranges. By utilizing media queries, you can specify to browsers when to load various layouts for a page based on the screen size being utilized. These media queries play a vital role in HTML, CSS, and JS libraries like Bootstrap.
There are other methods in which you can apply CSS to enhance the responsiveness of your website.
- Creating a CSS grid layout. CSS grid layouts, such as the one that Bootstrap provides, offer a simple way to help you adjust designs to various screen sizes. Having a layout with well-defined elements can enable you to configure how they appear and how much space they take with each size of screen.
- Using size percentages for layout elements. As you might know, CSS enables you to set the height and width of elements using pixels and other units of measurement. To make your website more responsive, we recommend that you use percentages. That way, elements such as buttons should adapt seamlessly as screens get smaller.
- Adjusting font sizes using media queries. Images and other visual elements on a page shouldn’t be the only things that scale for smaller screens. Text also needs to be responsive or you can end up with a mobile site where users can only see a word or two on their screen before needing to scroll down.
- Controlling the spacing between elements. CSS enables you to determine the spacing between elements so there’s enough whitespace even when pages scale down.
5. Choose Responsive Themes and Plugins
Using WordPress has the benefit of being relatively simple to create a responsive website with the CMS. Currently, it is more challenging to create a non-responsive website. If you carefully select appropriate plugins and themes, your site should be in excellent condition.
Luckily, the majority of popular themes are designed to be mobile-friendly. This indicates that selecting the appropriate theme can save you a significant amount of time. By doing so, you can bypass the need to manually configure media breakpoints and establish CSS grids.
If you want to make sure if a theme is responsive before installing or buying it, we suggest checking its demo. Many theme demos offer previews of how their designs appear on smaller screens. Additionally, you can utilize a staging website to test new themes and evaluate their mobile-friendliness.
If you use the Block Editor or page builders like Elementor to create pages, you have the option to preview the design on various devices. By regularly previewing designs, there is no excuse for any of your pages to be not mobile-friendly.
6. Improve Your Site’s Loading Times
As mentioned earlier, website speeds have great importance in a mobile-first era. Enhancing the speed of your site can not only reduce your bounce rate but also enhance your users’ experience, which ultimately benefits your bottom line.
By testing your website’s Core Web Vitals, you can obtain an accurate estimate of its loading time. Once you have this information and the optimization suggestions provided by the tool, you can proceed to enhance your site’s loading times. Below are some highly effective optimization techniques that you can implement on your website.
- Implement caching. When you use caching, some of your website’s files will be saved in a more convenient location (such as on each visitor’s local device), so they don’t need to be downloaded every time a new page is accessed. There are many free caching plugins available, although some hosting plans such as DreamPress include this feature by default.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Instead of delivering your files from one central server, a CDN lets you store copies of them in a series of servers that are spread out geographically. This makes loading times more balanced regardless of a given user’s location, while also reducing your bandwidth usage.
- Compress your images. Large image files are often the culprits behind slow loading times. By compressing them, you can reduce their size without affecting their quality. There are a number of free and premium solutions to help you do this, including the ShortPixel plugin and the TinyPNG tool.
- Minify your code. By optimizing your site’s CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code, you can make it more efficient and shave precious seconds off your load times.
- Keep all aspects of your site up to date. Using outdated software to run your website not only leaves you vulnerable to security issues, but also prevents it from performing at peak efficiency. By keeping your plugins, themes, and CMS updated at all times, you can avoid those problems.
