Businesses tend to think about the desktop version of a site first before moving to the mobile version – to many, the progression makes sense.
But Jackson says this makes less sense in a world where mobile traffic is beginning to take over desktop. Instead, he argues, you need to start developing your mobile site first.
“If you’ve got 30% of your traffic coming from a smartphone and over 50% from mobile devices, you need to design for mobile first.”
“Otherwise, you end up with just a poorer version of the main site.”
To design a comprehensive mobile site, Jackson says businesses need to actually understand what people are coming for. This is why it’s crucial to check what types of searches people are making on the site, or which links they’re clicking first – this is all data that can be tracked with Google Analytics.
From there, it’s a matter of designing the site to reflect that activity. For instance, if people are searching for contact details, then a ‘contact’ navigation option should be displayed more prominently on the home page of the mobile site. The same applies for catalogue details or shopping carts.
But above all, Jackson says, the mobile site needs to more accurately reflect your overall brand, especially as it will probably be the first time a user is interacting with your company.
“This is why it needs to be one of the first things you think about, rather than the opposite.”
The same applies for tablets. As these experts point out, more users are accessing websites through tablets at home. They’re usually relaxing in the evening, and are searching for sites they’ve already browsed on their smartphones.
Which is why businesses need to make tablet experiences easier to use than smartphones from a commerce perspective.
For this, says brandsExclusive chief executive Daniel Jarosch, businesses need to look at responsive design techniques.
The concept of responsive design is simple – instead of designing three separate sites for desktops, tablets and smartphones, businesses just create one template and then it gets automatically resized based on the device being used.
Using a responsive design template could help conversions, he says, although stresses every website is different.
“In general, we say it’s important to have a responsive site but… for commerce that can break down a little bit,” he says, although adds Google tends to reward responsive design in rankings.
“You have to use some static elements such as the shopping cart.”
However, all these experts agree – making buying options more prominent on a tablet experience should be a priority.
It’s difficult to make a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to mobile design. What one audience wants from one website will be totally different from another.
Which is why these experts say businesses need to start tracking how people are actually using their sites. Then, they say, companies can start creating mobile sites that will actually reflect what people want.
“We’ll ask our customers what types of services they want, whether they find value in certain things,” Sarah Hayden says.
“But the best research is what people are actually doing.”
Jackson agrees. Ultimately, he says, if you simply watch what people are using your site for, “you’ll never have to do any polling”.
“You can just use the data. If people are abandoning your site at a certain point, you can use analytics to figure out why, and then revise your designs accordingly.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
