Mobile Homepage Design Best Practices

mobile homepage

Mobile user Experience best practices – mobile homepage design

With smartphone use and mobile web access now at an all time high, it has become more important than ever that you provide your customers with the right mobile user experience. Screen space on the smaller device is at a premium, so a major usability factor that requires consideration is the mobile homepage design.

Here are a few best practices to adhere to when designing your homepage for the smartphone market.

Keep it simple

Your customers will have different expectations when accessing your website via mobile. They may be in a hurry, on the move, or engaged in some other activity that means they want fast and simple passage to achieve their goal. Minimise the amount of clicks required for them to do this. As they’re also browsing via a smaller screen, it pays to keep your homepage simple. Bin the oversized graphics, press releases, and all those other inessential elements that may work on the ‘big’ site, but only get in the way, or offer confusion and distraction on mobile.

Link to what the customer wants

Your mobile homepage design should reflect why the customer is there. From it, the user should be able to reach important pages such as Product Search, Contact, Location (if you have a physical premises) etc. Keep the link text simple, but ensure that there’s no doubt left in the customer’s mind as to what they’re clicking on. Use analytics software to gain further insight into what areas of content are popular, and link them in the mobile homepage design.

Make the navigation linear

The way in which you present your navigation also needs to change. As screen space is limited, the standard horizontal menu bar of the ‘big’ website becomes cramped and often unworkable when rendered on mobile (fat-finger syndrome, anyone?). Your customers will be viewing your website predominately in the ‘portrait’ format, scrolling vertically although in Usability Testing we do see users turn the smartphone horizontally about 10% of the time. Therefore, it is natural to provide your menu links to suit. A linear navigation, with the most important buttons at the top, offers the customer a convenient and functional method by which to discover the content they need.

Be brand consistent

Clearly define your brand in the mobile homepage design. Customers need the reassurance of recognisable features that firmly tie the mobile version of your website in with your brand. Whether it’s colour scheme, font, core functions, or something else that maintains the brand experience of the main website, consistency increases awareness, satisfies existing loyalty, and creates an all round better user experience.

Create a better mobile user experience for your customers with effective mobile homepage design. To find out how, give us a call free on 08000 246 247 or drop us an email at hello@ux247.com.

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