Designing the Mobile User Experience

Companies are hungry to know what to do with mobile but many teams aren't sure where to begin.

With an increasing number of mobile devices available, you must now plan your online channel with mobile devices in mind, ensuring you have the capability to be responsive to multiple display dimensions. Mobile user experience presents us with the opportunity to craft new ways for people to interact with your systems and content.

As a web designer, the good news is that the design methodology is similar to designing for traditional browser-based user interfaces — of course with some additional mobile-only considerations for smaller screen displays.

Designing a website that works seamlessly on both full-sized screens and mobile devices can be challenging. Content that fits just fine on a large screen may not quite work on smaller devices, and you cannot rely solely on doing the technical work to tell the mobile browser to serve up the presentation layer correctly.

Creating a mobile-ready website is not simply removing the design ‘candy’ from your carefully crafted designs. We can’t just add in bigger call-to-action buttons and expect our mobile experience to be a success.

We need to stay mindful of UX design principles in order to appeal to a mobile audience. Here are some key considerations to bear in mind.

Know thy user

The best thing a mobile designer can do is observe human behaviour. It’s a common misconception that UX for mobile is all about creating something for users that are time poor, checking their mobile on the bus, train or walking along the street. In actual fact, people are now using their mobiles at home as they would a laptop in preference of specific tools (or apps) available to them.  

Understand the medium 

When you’re using your mobile phone to consume the web, rather than your PC or laptop, instead of navigating via your mouse to interact with the web, you’re now using your fingertips. This, of course, provides its own unique challenges. You need to ensure that your design accommodates fingertip navigation. Designers need to rethink conventional mouse-based interaction – i.e. rollovers and dropdown menus. Be mindful of your own thinking and age-old habits – don’t be constrained by past conventions.

Participate in the culture

If you don’t already own a mobile device, go out and buy one. You need to participate in the culture that you are designing for. Embrace the chaos and experience the ways in which this dynamic and interesting space is changing each and every day. Stumble on your own usability frustrations and learn from these in your own designs.

Prototype, prototype, prototype

Prototyping is important in an iterative user-centred design process. Prototyping provides us with a space where we can test design alternatives, generate new and better ideas, and gradually refine them into final design solutions. Prototype early and often through the design process, continually testing with users and iterating based on their feedback.

Mobile isn’t a fad. Forecasts predict that smartphones will outsell personal computers this year. We need to ensure that our designs meet this increasing demand and provide positive online mobile user experiences.

If you’d like to chat about your questions and concerns about how to design for mobile user experience, we’re always keen to talk. Email mark.delaney@intergen.co.nz.