Because of this, web design has changed dramatically and requires a design which works effectively on all devices. It’s easy to design a site which works on desktop but only looks “ok” on your phone.
- Avoid using wide elements (like large tables) that cannot be reworked for mobile views
- Sites should be designed with mobile, tablet, desktop and tv devices in mind as part of the design strategy.
- Ready-made templates are common offenders for churning out sites that don’t work well on mobile. Often the base template is well optimised for mobile views but the nature of templates makes it easy to end up with ineffective content.
- With a bit of planning each website element can reworked to work in a portrait view and a landscape view, from there it’s just a matter of controlling scaling.
- Avoid hiding elements completely from mobile views, it’s a “cop out” and Google actually doesn’t like to see sites with reduced content on mobile unless there’s a really good reason for it!
- Don’t use a separate “mobile only” template, this was an acceptable solution in 2010 but is now heavily frowned upon.