More and more people nowadays are accessing internet from their mobile phone. Also more and more web master provide mobile version of their site for the convenience of their mobile user. There are some basic difference between developing a regular site and a mobile site.
Mobile user see our website through their tiny mobile phone screen, and navigate around with keypad, touch screen, or trackball. They type with just one or two finger. So accessing web with mobile phone could be a little more tricky than doing it with computer. That’s why in mobile web development, we’re focusing much more on content and usability rather than fancy design and flashy widget.
When user get into our mobile site, their attention should be driven to focus on content we want them to see. So just hide all the rarely used feature, banner, and everything less important. This is crucial because most of mobile web visitors are accessing the web not to enjoy our marvelous design, but they just want to get or send information as quick as possible.
Talking about sending information, we would also like to keep all form short. Avoid making user have to fill long form. People mistype more when they’re dealing with mobile device.
Keeping the design minimum doesn’t mean we have to give user low quality interface. As we should keep image and every fancy design element as little as possible, we can maximize the visual aesthetic by playing with colors. But keep in mind that the main objective in choosing color for mobile web is still not just to make things look pretty, but also to communicate our content more effectively. For example, choose the super contrast background color and text color.
And one thing we shouldn’t forget is to apply auto-redirect mobile user function and detect specific screen resolutions because mobile phone screen size vary more than computer monitor screen.
