Free - 7 Usability Guidelines For Websites On Mobile Devices

More and more mobile phones users are browsing and searching the Internet on their handsets. The UK, for example, has neared saturation for mobile phones and many handset browsers can now handle sites designed for viewing on computers. Indeed 20% of UK mobile phone users now use the Internet on their mobile devices (source: 3G.co.uk).

6. Place basic browsing controls on the page

To save screen space, mobile browsers often don't display basic controls such as 'Back' or they display the web page in full screen mode. As such, always include a 'Back' button on every page other than the homepage.

Transport for London's mobile journey planner places basic controls, such as 'Next page', 'Back to results' and 'New journey', at the bottom of each page.

7. Design mobile-friendly page layouts

On your website, make sure you design the page to present content in the right order and render well on mobile screens. Website layouts for large landscape PC screens usually don't work well on small portrait mobile phone screens. Furthermore, mobile browsers and page transcoders usually vertically stack pages suitable for portrait display.

It's often best to have completely different page designs to meet mobile users' needs. If mobile phone users are a big part of your business then you should consider creating a site just for mobiles. Sites that are designed for mobiles perform significantly better with users than those that aren't.

For example, BAA's website renders very poorly on a mobile screen. Page sections don't appear where intended relative to each other and pages look poorly designed. Single word link text can be wrapped over 4 lines making it difficult to read. Conversely, Transport for London's mobile homepage contains simple categorised lists of links. Users find this easy and quick to use.

In a nutshell

Don't neglect your current and/or potential users by not designing for mobile phones. Follow these guidelines but don't forget usability to test your website on mobile phones. Real usability testing will always capture things that can't be covered by general guidelines.

This article was written by Abid Warsi. Abid's crazy about usability - so crazy that he works for Webcredible, an industry leading usability and accessibility consultancy, as a user experience consultant. He's very good at eye tracking and extremely talented at writing for the web.