We web designers are living in a flowing river of time, where everything is changing, including the technologies. Before 2007, we were living in a pure web era, where mobile had no traces. But today, a new generation is mobile savvy and the world wide web itself has shifted noticeably to mobile.
If you want to remain contemporary, you should accept this hard truth and reflect it in your work. If your client is not aware of this phenomenon, it is your duty to tell them and convince them to be mobile first in their endeavors. This is their future, as well as yours. If you don’t wish to jump on the mobile programming bandwagon, no problem; but, you should have enough knowledge and understanding to create a website or web application that is mobile friendly.
Take Mobile First Approach
I belabor this point in this post, because if you have created a good website for desktop only users and your website is not easily accessible on mobile devices, you are committing a sin, a big sin, to your client as well as the website users who wish to see that on their tiny devices. If an end user enters the URL of your website and finds that your site is not readily accessible on their mobile device, and instead they have to find out via a desktop computer, she will be disappointed. And your client will lose her business around 50% of the time, as half of the population uses mobile devices to access the internet, frequently and permanently.
Show Content Parity
Imagine your website appears on mobile devices with a message that the user can’t access the web page as the screen size is small or orientation is not landscaped, as well as the mobile browser is not supporting such content. Thus, you deny access of your website and don’t deliver content to its true users.
Some web designers are creating mobile specific websites that are entirely different from the desktop version. Of course, creating a mobile specific website is good thing, but delivering totally different content is a sin, because you are not giving your users whatever they wish. You can instead create a compact version of the content and plan that in a different layout. But don’t leave out important content on your mobile version, as your users crave it badly.
If you think, your mobile users are seeking only local content, that is not true. They, as with desktop users, like all sorts of information. If your site design is not compatible with the mobile devices in terms of screen size, browser version, CPU power, connectivity, etc. you should implement true solutions by optimizing your site with progressive enhancement techniques or other solutions. You need to finalize the content strategies that can serve all sorts of content in various kinds of devices. It is up to you whether you will create a mobile specific website compatible with the large portion of your mobile user audience or you instead will create a responsive design, which is fit for all screens, be it tiny devices or their big sisters.
Consistent User Experiences
Whatever approach you take, don’t put your visitors in dismay and deny them all the useful content placed on your website. Moreover, you should deliver consistent user experiences of your site across multiple devices, so your mobile users do not suffer anymore. In due course, you have to focus on the performance of your website across the devices as well as make them SEO friendly by various techniques, so your end users can find your website on their mobile SERPs with same URL and without any duplicate content issues.
References & More Reading
Mobile Web Problems and How to Avoid Them
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