Why mobile matters more than desktop

You look at your website on an office monitor, on fast internet and in peace. Your customer opens it one handed on a three year old phone, on mobile data, usually at the moment they need something right now.

The mobile share differs by industry

An average number about mobile helps nobody. The difference between a locksmith and a company selling production lines is huge. The more urgent the need, the higher the mobile share: a burst pipe, a locked door, hunger. The longer the decision and the more people involved, the more desktop, because the link is sent to colleagues and read in the office. That also changes what the first screen should do.

Check your own numbers in Google Analytics, because your website is the only data that matters.

On mobile people do not read, they scan

On a monitor you see the whole first screen. On a phone you see a strip about the height of your palm, and it must say who you are, what you do and how to contact you. If there is only a photo and a headline about passion for the craft, the thumb scrolls on, looking for anything concrete.

Sentences are read three words at a time. A long paragraph becomes a grey block the thumb flies over. So I write short blocks, add subheadings every few paragraphs and pull key information onto separate lines. That is not dumbing down, it is adapting to how people really read on a phone.

A thumb instead of a mouse changes the whole interface

A mouse is pixel precise, a thumb is not. Buttons must be at least as tall as a fingernail, have space around them and sit in the lower half of the screen where the thumb reaches. A menu hidden in the top corner is the hardest place to reach on a big phone, yet that is where the most important things often are.

There is also no hover on mobile. Everything that appears on desktop when you move the mouse over it simply does not exist on a phone: dropdown menus, icon labels, previews. If essential information is hidden there, most of your visitors never see it.

• Buttons at least 48 pixels high, with space from other elements
• The phone number as a tappable link, not an image or plain text
• The main action in the lower third of the screen, within thumb reach
• No essential information only on hover
• Keyboard type by field: numbers for phone, email layout for email
• Map and opening hours within two taps, not at the end of the Contact page

Speed on mobile data, not office wifi

You test your website on fast internet and a new laptop. The customer opens it on an old Android with two bars of signal. The difference in loading can be several times. That is why I always measure with throttled speed and a slowed down processor, otherwise you fool yourself with a result no visitor ever experiences.

The usual brakes are always the same: photos uploaded in full resolution, a background video in the hero section and fonts loaded from elsewhere. Remove them and a normal website gets dramatically faster. The visitor will not name it, but they will stay. More in how to improve website speed.

The form on mobile: where enquiries get lost

A form that looks airy on a monitor becomes ten fields stacked on mobile and three screens of scrolling. Every extra field means fewer people finish. Ask for the rest in your reply.

Timing matters too. A form split into steps, where the first step is one simple question, gets finished by more people than one long form. Whoever took the first step wants to finish the second.

• No more than four fields in the first step
• Offer a call next to the form, some people never fill in anything
• Let the browser fill in name and email, do not block autofill
• Show errors at the specific field and visible without scrolling
• Confirmation on the same screen after sending
• Enquiry notification on your phone, so you can reply within minutes

What to do this week

Open your website on your phone, on mobile data, not home wifi. Hold it in one hand and try to do what you want people to do: call, send an enquiry, find a price. Most problems show within two minutes and half of them can be fixed in an afternoon. The other half is usually the reason to rebuild.

When I build a website, mobile is the default and desktop is the variant, not the other way round. A website starts at CZK 19,990 and I deliver within 7 days.

• Check the mobile share for the last 90 days, not the whole history
• Go through the website with one thumb and note every hiccup
• Compress the biggest photos, usually the biggest single speed win
• Move the phone number and main enquiry within thumb reach
• Shorten the form to four fields and watch the difference for a week