(source: Usabilla)ĭesigning a website as a mobile-first responsive site forces designers to ask a number of important questions because there is less screen real estate to work with. Mobile-first web design helps to reevaluate what’s visually and functionally necessary.ĭesigners ought to consider taking a mobile-first approach to responsive web design.
It’s easier to scale up the mobile version than it is to scale down the desktop version (again, because of the lack of space on mobile websites).Mobile websites have more usability concerns (this is mostly due to the lack of screen real estate), so it’s practical and more efficient for the primary focus to be on mobile design.There are a number of reasons why this approach works well. Mobile-first web design means designing the mobile website first and working up to the desktop version. Where should they start? A Mobile-first Approach to Responsive Web Design In order to design websites that can compete on today’s internet, web designers must be experts at responsive web design (RWD). Would you even consider the non-optimized version?ĮBay: Not mobile-optimized vs. what it would look like if it weren’t mobile-optimized. Take a look at this mobile-optimized version of eBay vs.
83% of mobile users say that they should be able to continue the experience on desktop if they wish. You can take Google’s mobile-friendly test here.ĭoes any of this mean that mobile is more important than desktop? No. It’s way too easy for users to hit the back button and try a rival business instead, and Google even ranks websites that are not responsive lower in their search. By the end of 2018, it’s expected that the global traffic share for mobile devices will grow to 79%, which is an exceptional increase.īusinesses without a mobile website are falling behind at an alarming rate, because 8 in 10 visitors will stop engaging with a website that doesn’t display well on their device. Responsive websites are websites that adapt to all screen sizes and resolutions, not only on desktop but also on mobile, tablet, and sometimes even TV.Īccording to Statista, mobile traffic was responsible for 52.64% of all global traffic in 2017, meaning that a website not well optimized for mobile devices is losing out on approximately half of its traffic.