As mobile web browsing becomes more common, it’s increasingly important to design websites for mobile use as well as for desktop browsing.  It helps to start out by thinking about how the mobile browsing experience differs from desktop browsing.

1. Smaller screens.
Small Screen – Comparing to the smallest-screen MacBook that has a 2304 x 1440 pixel resolution, an iPhone 6s retina display is only 1332 x 750 pixels. Smartphones and tablets in Jacksonville present a challenge: not only they come with a range of sizes, they also have an ability to rotate content to fit their landscape or portrait orientation. A smaller display means that the user can see a lot less information at once. Most modern mobile browsers compensate for this by allowing the user to zoom in and out easily, as well as adapting font sizes to make text more readable. Typically, though, the user will need to zoom in if they want to read the text in your page.

2. Slower Speed.
Although the speed of mobile internet is catching up, a typical 4G mobile device gets a 5-12 Mbps download rate, compared to an average of over 50 Mbps for broadband internet users. Jacksonville mobile users have limited patience when it comes to waiting every extra second for your pages to load. It is important to make your Jacksonville mobile site as bandwidth-efficient as possible. According to Google, more than half of users with move on to another mobile website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. To improve your site’s speed optimize the images, minify code, and reduce redirects.

3. Tabbing, touch input and keyboards.
Even though some tablet and mobile phones have tab functionality, with smaller size and clumsy navigation, it is challenging to brows through more than one mobile site.  One important aspect of many mobile devices is touch-based input. Rather than using a mouse, the vast majority of mobile users work with their devices using their fingers. It means that without a mouse pointer, there is no concept of “hovering” over a page element. Tapping a small link with a big finger is a hit or miss. So, creating larger touch-friendly buttons and links can help with the navigation.Typing on a mobile devices can be far from pleasant. So, using shorter URLs, adding an autocomplete function to the search fields can help smooth the search process. Customers don’t want to have to scroll or load new pages unnecessarily. They want something very clear to click on when they’re on a mobile device. This takes them to the next step.

4. Other “Flashy” Things.
On the desktop, Flash is almost ubiquitous, with over 90% of browsers having the Flash player installed. No iOS devices run Flash. Android devices using version 2.2 or later can run Flash, although many users choose to turn it off since it can cause performance and stability problems. Add to that Java or cookies, large photos and animations and you might compromise your mobile site’s user friendliness.