Definition and Tips for Web Professionals
Mobile devices are an essential part of most people’s daily lives. Users conduct job searches on the go, look up restaurants in their area for last-minute reservations and book travel in between meetings.
As they dominate website traffic, web professionals must adapt their content and design for these smaller screens. The good news is cell phones come with the opportunity to highlight vital information, increase accessibility and gain new audience insights — positive outcomes for designers working with any screen size.
Mobile-first design has its quirks and rewards. The first step is understanding the concept, its benefits and how it differs from other approaches. Following the best practices for successful implementation can help your site rank higher in search results, convert more customers and optimize for accessibility.
What Is Mobile-First Design?
Mobile-first design is a web development approach that designs for smaller screens before scaling content to larger ones, like desktops or tablets. It optimizes user experience and functionality. As screens grow smaller and mobile functions like voice assistants impact search engine results, web developers must consider a mobile-first approach.
What Are the Benefits of Mobile-First Design?
Mobile-first design targets users who drive the majority of internet use. These devices account for over 60% of global web traffic, so understanding the best configurations is essential for design professionals.
Mobile-first design comes with many benefits:
- Saves time: By beginning with mobile-optimized design first, you don’t have to adapt designs made for larger screens to smaller ones later on.
- Provides better SEO performance: Search engines like Google cater to their users’ needs, so they prioritize mobile-friendly sites in results since many of today’s users are conducting searches on their mobile devices.
- Encourages clean design: Designing for a smaller screen means cutting out extraneous information and visuals. Efficient design highlights core content.
- Is compatible with various mobile functions: Mobile-first design can use built-in features like GPS and voice assistants.
- Improves user experience: Mobile-first improves users’ experience through clean, focused design optimized for smaller devices.
- Ensures faster load times: Mobile-first design involves reducing unnecessary information and graphic elements and optimizing images for smaller screens. This pared-down style usually results in faster load times.
- Boosts accessibility: Mobile-first design often features design elements that work better on a small screen, like legible font, high contrast and touch-friendly buttons. These things improve accessibility, particularly for users with motor impairments.
- Saves money: Mobile-first design can save companies time and money by allowing them to avoid spending later to adapt their sites.
- Looks to the future: Mobile users drive search traffic, which doesn’t look like it will change soon. Integrating mobile-first design into your development process at this stage is a smart way to prepare for the future.
- Expands profitability: If your site’s visitors are using mobile devices and you’re selling a product or service, optimizing for mobile devices is essential. Experts are predicting that mobile sales could reach $710 billion by 2025, a number that continues to skyrocket as more people rely on mobile versus desktop browsing.
How Is Mobile-First Design Different From Other Approaches?
People have used various devices to conduct online searches for a while, and it’s not new for web professionals to consider this. Many design concepts are already built around understanding the affordability and limitations of different devices. Mobile-first design responds to the increase in mobile users, but it also clearly borrows from the concepts that came before it — concepts that are still viable, depending on your audience.
The differences between mobile-first design and other web design concepts can be subtle. What variations account for the different screen sizes and capabilities?
Adaptive Design vs. Mobile-First Design
Adaptive design creates separate versions of a single site, each optimized explicitly for the device that opens it. It can make a mobile-friendly version of the website, but mobile-first design begins with the mobile version and later adapts the site for other devices and screen sizes.
Mobile-Optimized Design vs. Mobile-First Design
Mobile-optimized design is aware of users’ impact on search engine results. However, it is created for any site or web app that functions practically and aesthetically well on a mobile device.
Mobile-first design takes mobile-optimized design a step further by designing exclusively for cellphones from the beginning and adapting to other devices later.
Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile-First Design
As the name suggests, responsive web design responds to different screen dimensions. A single site will look different depending on whether users view it on a mobile device, desktop or tablet. Whereas mobile-first design prioritizes cellphone users immediately in its design process, responsive web design transforms to fit wherever it’s needed.
While responsive design’s fluidity is a great benefit, some key differences with mobile-first design can make one better depending on your objectives and users.
A site developed with responsive design can update its content in a single place, which will automatically sync across screen dimensions. Mobile-first design requires different sources for updating mobile and desktop content. Responsive design can address users’ needs, but — because it is not tailored for one device — mobile users might see less than desktop users even though the information is still in the site’s structure.
User-First Design vs. Mobile-First Design
User-first design all depends on your users. This approach leans on research to tell developers what devices individuals are searching on so they can design the experience most optimized for them. Research can look at what people use most, how much time they spend online, what time of day they search most often and more.
User-first design prioritizes whatever devices users engage with or move between — whether desktop, mobile or tablet. Depending on research findings, a company focused on user-first design could adopt any approach.
How Can Web Professionals Implement Mobile-First Design?
Whether a web professional has been working with mobile-first design for a while or is just dipping their toe in now, there are several ways to prioritize web design for mobile users.
- Identify what core thing end users are looking for when accessing the site. If they’re searching on a mobile device, they may be looking for a quick answer or efficiently fulfilling a task rather than conducting lengthier research.
- Prioritize the most essential content.
- Opt for a simplistic visual design.
- Optimize for mobile speed and functionality.
- Use intuitive navigation.
- Avoid distracting popups.
- Use clickable elements within easy reach of thumbs.
- Optimize videos and images for speedy loading.
- Avoid hover-over effects that work with a desktop mouse but not a finger.
- Use buttons for calls to action instead of links.
- Take advantage of mobile functions by linking phone numbers for easy calling and addresses for integration with Maps.
- Use a hamburger menu to manage your site’s content while maintaining a clean visual design for an optimized user experience. Make the menu clear and in an expected place — like the screen’s upper corner — for accessibility.
- If your site sells a product or service, ensure it is optimized for mobile payments like Apple Pay.
The Rise of Mobile-First Design
As search engines continue to respond to the rise in mobile users, web professionals must consider the impact mobile-first design can have on search engine rankings and user satisfaction. It presents a great opportunity for companies to ensure they are meeting users’ needs and prioritizing the devices they use most.
