Twelve tips for building a mobile site

September 2, 2008

Marci Troutman is founder/CEO of Siteminis

By Marci Troutman

Have you ever really looked at mobile sites on the Web? I mean, really looked at them, worked with them, or tried to actually do something on them?

The usual approach I take when I really need to find something is I will search Google and see what comes up, punch in the URL and hope for the best. But most of the time, I am sorely disappointed with the results.

It is amazing to me that with all the commerce and information that flows through the Internet that most major players in the Web world have given so little thought to the user experience through that little 2 � inches of LCD real estate that occupies most consumers' pockets in the form of a mobile phone.

If you look at the numbers, compared to laptops and PCs, the mobile appliance eclipses the number of those appliances by an order of magnitude.

Most major Internet companies or companies that use the Internet as an extension of their bricks-and-mortar world are just plain naive about placement of their product in a mobile environment, what with all the different types of phones, wireless company platforms and politics.

It feels just like the world back in 1998 when the idea of Internet commerce was just establishing itself and the concept of click- through, shopping-cart drops and ease of usage were merely wire frames on a PowerPoint presentation at some small corner office in the marketing department, or worse, yet left in the hands of the IT department.

Times are changing and the companies that take mobile commerce seriously now will reap the benefits of their foresightedness way ahead of their competition. Now what makes a good user interface for a mobile customer?

Listed below�are several tips for a mobile site build:

1.�Logo should live top left and link back to the homepage

2.�The search function should be visible prior to needing to scroll down the page, as this is the most commonly used tool within a mobile site and within a PC/Mac shopping site

3.�There shouldn't be more than three to four scrolls on any page as a longer page could lead to longer load times and frustrate customers with the page load

4.�All imagery should be optimized for a mobile environment, not the PC/Mac environment. WAP will not do this for you, neither will an extension such as .mobi

5.�The URL or Web address should remain the same as your main PC/Mac site to allow the ease and comfort of use from your customers

6.�Category navigation should be simple and visible prior to needing to scroll down the page

7.�Break down the categories into thorough sub-categories in order to make the site as user-friendly as possible and to eliminate the need for long scroll pages with long download times

8.�Security measures already in place for the company's main PC/Mac site should be used for the mobile site as well. For example, all software should live behind the firewall that has already been proven, tried and tested. This will ensure that your customers feel just as safe shopping your mobile site as they do your PC/Mac entity

9.�On your notices, have "layered notices" to let the main points of terms, conditions and privacy laws be a short line with a link to direct the user back to the main PC/Mac site for more extensive details. This offers a comfort level to users that all privacy laws are adhered on your site

10.�The "Contact us" link should be visible from all pages

11.�Use drop-down menus whenever possible to make the most use of the small space across the mobile canvas

12.�Ensure that site pages are built to fit across the broad spectrum of all size phones.� i.e., not using images that lock to a specified dimension but spec'ing the phone screens in order to ensure the pages will work well on all platforms

Now, all of the above are achievable, though some are harder than others. Most companies treat the mobile site offering and interface as a red-headed stepchild, but that is changing.

Future articles will discuss many issues surrounding mobile site strategies, tactics, future visions and current attitudes.

Marci Troutman is founder of Siteminis Inc., a mobile site developer in Marietta, GA. Reach her at

Comments on "Twelve tips for building a mobile site"

1. Marci Troutman says:

   September 7, 2008 at 8:32am

   I wanted to respond to your comments: I believe that search in a mobile site is one of the key elements for mobile commerce to work at all on mobile phones. We have this capacity at siteminis and believe that through the ability to search on google for the mobile this will drive the users to "search" for their product in the product mix that is available on any mobile phone, it is easier and much more efficient than bread crumbs, navigation, etc that are not as user friendly in that small space as they are on the PC/MAC version. I do agree that if you are to work with any mobile software company you should check on their QA process, as this is an extremely important element, in order to not lose a portion of customers due to the site not working properly on their mobile platform.

2. Luke Janssen says:

   September 2, 2008 at 9:58pm

   Hi. Not sure I agree with all of your points, although by and large they are good ones.
   
   Having a search function in a mobile site, is a mistake, mobile sites need to have a singular purpose, or at the most two or three key things that they are trying to get across. There isn't time to have a site that is complicated enough to warrant a search function.
   
   There are many design issues to consider too, for example many mobiles have a default blue highlight state, so if you are trying to highlight something blue on the site, it will be difficult to see that it has been selected. There are a few more of these things to consider which I won't go into now.
   
   The main thing we find is to just make sure the site has been planned properly with 2 main things in mind: 1) that the screen and user interface is much smaller, and 2) that people will be interacting with it at different times than when they are in front of their PC.
   
   Lastly, from a technical point of view, the you need to have a handset rendering engine. This identifies the mobile that is accessing the site, and formats the site accordingly. You can't use WURFL, and I don't know of any agencies that are able to do this. You need to use a specialist mobile company who have at least one resource dedicated to keeping the handset database up to date. If you work with someone, ask how many physical handsets they have. If they have less than 100 steer clear.
   
   Thats my 2c... :)