I Need To Design For Mobile Devices Or Be Left Behind

I Need To Design For Mobile Devices Or Be Left Behind

When 189 million Facebook users are "mobile only" and 1-in-4 people cannot remember a time not having their phone with them it may be time to rethink my mobile strategy. In a recent radio interview Kelly McDonald commented on some surprising social media statistics that has encouraged me to rethink not only my social media strategy but also my mobile strategy.

After the show aired I picked up my iPhone - always at my side - and searched for a blog post I had recently written on ActiveRain. What I discovered was the mobile version was a mess on my iPhone where I had gone in and "made it pretty" changing font attributes and adding simple HTML coding (a basic two cell table). As seen in the images below, on the left is an ActiveRain blog post using this technique as seen on my PC using Chrome, and on the right is an another ActiveRain blog post using that same technique as seen on my iPhone using Google Search. All I can say is "not pretty".

 

Then I browsed some other ActiveRain blogs while still on my phone to see how things were looking (maybe it was just my post and my tinkering that was getting me in trouble will pretty printing with fancy fonts and slick tables). I happened upon a blog where I wanted to leave a comment but was unable to because I could not get the draggable captcha to work. Every time I tried to drag the "man" into the "drop here" box (see below right) my screen moved around instead. There was simply no easy way to use the draggable captcha on my "finger ready" mobile device. This of course was truly annoying as I am sure it would be for other users. Draggable captcha works just fine on desktop and laptop computers without touch screens (see below left) but fails outright on touch screen interfaces on devices like iPhones, iPads, and other phones and tablets that are meant to move at the flick of a finger.

 

I thought a long time about what Ms. McDonald had to say about social media and mobile device trends. As real estate agent, like many agents that pursue emerging and evolving trends, I shifted along time ago from printing something in the newspaper to blogging about something online. My clients have moved from newspapers to tablets and I have too. After blogging about something I tweet about it. I hope a large number number of prospects, clients and customers see my tweets (all 140 characters of it) and follow the links to my posts. Once there, what device were they using to read content? They're using whatever device they have in their hand, from phones to tablets first, then laptops and desktop computers. If they can't read my content because it doesn't display correctly on the device I'm going to lose them.  If I lose their "eyeballs" that translate into lost business (since viewers/readers simply move on to other posts or websites that are optimized for the device their using). A "one size fits all" design may not work on all devices, so using minimal design elements (loose the fancy fonts, fancy layouts, pretty printing of any kind) and use platform insensitive plug-ins and add-ons; this appears to be crucial in evolving along with today mobile trends.

As I rethink my social media strategy it may also be time to rethink my mobile designs strategy. I should design my blog posts and websites around mobile devices like phones and tablets before I worry about how my posts and websites will look on laptop and desktop machines. If I'm not checking out my content on phone and tablets I should be. Because what I've found so far about my posts and websites is that I need to design for mobile devices or be left behind.