How to Build a Mobile Compatible Website
Remember that a mobile website is similar to any standard website. They contain HTML pages, textual content, data, images and video, just like any other website you see on a desktop or laptop computer. They are those that are accessed via Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G networks.
Mobile websites differ from typical desktop websites by being designed specifically for the smaller handheld displays and touchscreen interfaces found on tablet computers and mobile phone devices.
Key challenges
Web designers have seen more and more websites being viewed on mobile devices over the past few years. When it comes to mobile apps and mobile websites, designers cannot afford to ignore it.
Four key challenges facing designers
Many devices, some many browsers. Mobile development is more than cross-browser compatibility, as it is cross-platform compatibility. There are plenty of mobile devices from well-established vendors like Apple and Samsung, and more are on the way. Testing every device is a near impossible task. Making things more difficult is the fact that all devices can use many different mobile browsers such as native pre-installed browsers or Android or Firefox and other browsers.
Internet connection and slow speed. Preserver’s survey shows that mobile website slowness is a major problem for tablet and smartphone users. They are not as tolerant of waiting for a website to load or web page features to load as desktop users. Internet connections provided by vendors are to some extent responsible for slow speeds for users. Busy networks or slow web hosting, both of which are out of designers’ control. Designers are challenged to design with mobile users in mind and give them a customized yet complete experience on the device they use. Regular desktop designers should avoid pop-ups, Flash applications, high-quality background images, and unplayable videos to streamline their mobile websites instead of cutting out parts. They should also check that any redirects to mobile URLs are working. So the internet connection speed and loading time should be increased for quick loading and quick and pleasant experience.
The small screen size of mobile devices presents designers with another challenge which is the very small screen size. This forces designers to create radically different layouts of the main website. Typically a mobile website scrolls vertically or downwards with sections “stacked” on top of each other. However, designers should limit how much they do this because users don’t want to scroll endlessly to get to what they want to see, or else they’ll leave the website.
Along with ease of use, designers also face the issue of ease of use or ease of use, along with battling different screen sizes. As with all websites, they must be easy to use or users will leave the website. Designers can do a few things and they include the following:
Improve readability by increasing the font size of any small or medium-sized text.
Increase the clickable areas of any important buttons or links because “clicking” on links and parts of web pages is generally less accurate on mobile devices.
Choose vertical scrolling over horizontal scrolling because horizontal real estate is especially expensive on mobile devices.
Avoid floating elements where possible as they cause problems for mobile layouts.
Avoid mouse over states as they don’t work with most mobile devices. It either calls for showing links all the time on mobile devices.
Three methods of mobile design
With the above four issues in mind, designers have many avenues open to them when designing mobile-friendly websites.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) Using RWD enables you to optimize your website experience on different screen sizes and devices without creating multiple websites. This is accomplished by using flexible templates, CSS media queries, and JavaScript events. This approach results in a website that can respond to a device’s viewport size and adjust the visibility of images, template layout, and content. They can even use new device capabilities such as dragging, swiping and other user gestures recognized by touch devices. Plus, only one URL is required and it makes it easy for your users to interact, share and link to your content. A device-friendly view does not require any redirection. This reduces the load time.
Custom HTML websites can be dynamically set on the same URL to detect what type of device users are using to view your website and on the same URL. Can present a custom page (HTML + CSS) to the user. These custom pages are designed for any type of device.
o Relay to its actual user agent.
Separate mobile URLs.
A third option is to create a separate site for mobile traffic that is independent from your main desktop site. Designers can let the user decide whether they want to view the mobile website or not. IKEA furniture store was one such example.
Although this option requires more user interaction, it is the most foolproof way to divide mobile user traffic from desktop traffic and is also the easiest option to accomplish. No device detection required.
However, some mobile users may miss seeing the mobile link and other non-mobile viewers may click on the link because it is visible regardless of whether a device such as a desktop, tablet, or smartphone is being used. Is. Some users prefer a condensed layout that is optimized for their device, while other users may prefer to access the entire website without the restrictions of a limited mobile layout.
How can software help accomplish this task and make it easier?
Web design software in this day and age means software that can be purchased and downloaded to a desktop computer, and software that can be subscribed to and used online.
Since the inception of web design, web design software has simplified the task of designing websites over time by reducing the complexities involved such as removing the need to hand code all the time, Reducing the time it takes to design a website, and allowing more. Newbies design their own website and thus make it less elite. Designers use software like FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, and Expression Web to help them with this task.
Designers can reuse these tools to help them in their work of designing mobile websites. Such software is now provided by both desktop-based and online website builders such as GoDaddy and namecheap. There are many more.
Dreamweaver, the industry standard, in its latest version uses responsive design with a built-in range of settings for desktops, tablets and smartphones, allowing designers to easily design mobile-friendly websites. allows to.
Likewise, website builders such as those provided by GoDaddy enable the newest designer to design a mobile compatible website with just a few clicks.
Both types of web design software simplify the task of creating a mobile site as they include the ability to automate most of the tasks and processes. Typically, a responsive design approach is followed and therefore fluid layouts, proportion-based grids, and media queries are used.
Designers are able to solve some of the key challenges mentioned above by using software to somewhat automate the creation of code for a successful fluid layout combined with CSS and JavaScript media queries. Websites will adjust to different device screen sizes and cater to the number of browsers available on mobile devices. Ease of use is aided by features in the software that help make menus and clickable areas easier to click. It is also the designer’s job to take such steps.
The software cannot help with what the internet connection and speed is and so in many cases are out of the hands of the designer and the user but the designer has discretion to avoid anything unnecessary. Optimize the mobile site which can slow down the loading time of the website on mobile. The device