What is Mobile-first website

Introduction

Mobile phones are one of the most used devices nowadays. Every person sees his mobile-first after waking up and similarly, sleeps after watching the latest notifications on his mobile. There is an extreme dependence of people on mobiles, as a result, the importance of mobiles in our lives cannot be denied. The indulgence on mobile has become one of the reasons for using mobile phones for every purpose including internet browsing, using social media accounts, receiving and sending emails as well as doing online business. But it is not easy to run any business online through mobile phone, it requires some special considerations. After the internet revolution, it became necessary for shifting all the major businesses and works to online platforms and there arises a need to update every business website according to mobile phone screens as well so that they can be used efficiently on mobile.

The idea of the mobile-first website was first launched by Google by viewing the continuously increasing graph of their mobile phone users. This prediction became the reason for changing Google's policy in favor of their mobile phone users by allowing ranking of only those websites that offer the best services for mobile phone users.  Nowadays, only those business websites are successful that offer services both for mobile and desktop users.

What is Mobile-First design

Mobile-first design is a special web development strategy that focuses on the needs of mobile phone users while developing a website. It is important to create a customized display for mobile because the mobile screen is much shorter as compared to a desktop screen and cannot include all the small details that can easily be displayed on the desktop. So, the website has to make a customized display to make browsing through the internet fast and it should not just be usable by mobile phone users but should be fully optimized according to the needs of mobile phone users.

Many business companies use the wrong approach for developing their website. They initially create a website for desktop users and then make necessary changes in it to make it acceptable for mobile phone users. Instead, they should start by building a mobile version of their website and then move to the desktop version because it is easy to move from smaller to larger versions as compared to moving from larger to small versions and making them precise.

The creation of design for a small screen gives a better experience for users and covers most of their needs in a small space.

How to it is different

Mobile-first design is entirely different from responsive web design.

In mobile-first design, the web developer starts thinking and creating every element of the website by keeping in view only mobile phone users. They try their level best to concise all the relevant forms and basic design exactly according to the need of a mobile phone user and include only those elements which are important for mobile phone users and after successful implementation of their web design in mobile they make a large version of it for desktop by expanding the sizes of elements and also involving some new icons or features for the website. This technique not only creates optimized websites for mobile phone users but also saves time and effort for developers.

On the contrary, a responsive web design starts from gathering all information, icons, buttons, font sizes, spaces, navigation, etc, and assemble them to make a well-organized desktop version of the website. After its approval, they start working on the mob version than the website step by step rearranging, shrinking, and redesigning all the elements to be fitted in the mobile phone screens. This approach not only takes more time but also has chances of exclusion of some necessary elements in the mobile phone version of the website.

How to make Mobile-First Website

Let us discuss a stepwise approach for generating a mobile first website.

1-Make everything Simple and Clear

The most important step for creating a mobile-first website is to create the mobile phone version of the website to enter the entities in a very clear way. The data should be simple and try to avoid unnecessary details or pop-ups. Your basic website design should be simple and elegant and should not contain any kind of unnecessary data, images, or video links so that everything remains clear and easy to use for all mobile phone users.

2- Place CTAs

While designing CTAs (call to action) for the mobile version of your website keep in view that the users have to open these CTAs by using their fingers not the mouse, so they should be easy to read and place in folds so that the user is facilitated by them. Big buttons and large font CTAs are easy to use for mobile phone users.

3- Design Useful Navigation Bar

A user-friendly navigation bar plays an important role in the success of any website. While designing a mobile version of a website make sure that the navigation bar should be easy and convenient for users as well as condensed to a few possible options and contain easy-to-reach navigation buttons.

4- Repeatedly Test the Website on Different Mobile phones

After designing the mobile phone version of the website, the developer should test it on multiple mobile phones and ensure that the website has been running smoothly and on different mobile phones. After the success of initial testing, the company should launch the mobile-first website on the internet and ready to use for the clients.

You should not stop after the one-time launch of the mobile-first website instead test it repeatedly after specific time intervals because every day new mobile phones are being launched so you should make sure that your mobile-first website should be running on different mobile phones with the same speed and convenience. You can also test your website by using different tools available in the online market.

Another point that you should never forget is that your mobile-first website should be fitted best both for android as well as iPhones and pads. It should be also supported by many browsers other than chrome to facilitate users throughout the world.

The Final Verdict

In this digital world, mobile traffic has been increasing day by day which demands the quick responsiveness of every website on mobile phones. To cope with this pressure, you should design your website according to a mobile-first approach. You should design the website in the best interest of all the users all around the world so that it may be able to withhold high traffic and run smoothly and speedily in any version or any browser.