How to improve the User Experience on Mobile websites

Optimizing your mobile website’s UX

User Experience, or UX, refers to a user's overall experience when interacting with a product, service, or system. It encompasses all aspects of how a user perceives and feels about using a particular solution, from the initial encounter to the final impression. UX can, and should, be optimized. This can be achieved by ensuring responsiveness, prioritizing content, optimizing buttons, improving page load speed, simplifying form filling, enabling offline accessibility, testing on various devices, and implementing analytics. Let's delve deeper into each of these aspects.

Responsiveness is key

Responsiveness is paramount for our website. It must seamlessly adapt and display flawlessly on any device a potential user might have, whether it's a laptop, smartphone, or tablet. On-page text must be legible, and graphical elements should scale appropriately to display correctly on small, medium, and large screens.

Content prioritization

The most crucial information should be placed at the top of the page — users should immediately see the most important data upon entering the site. This means avoiding the need for excessive scrolling, as users are likely to leave a page if they can't find what they need quickly. This concept is related to "above the fold" and "below the fold." In short, the "above the fold" area is the portion of a webpage that is visible without scrolling. This section must contain compelling content to encourage users to continue reading. The "below the fold" area is the rest of the page that requires scrolling to view.

Additionally, it's important to avoid clutter that could distract the user. This includes flashy headlines, bright colors, intrusive pop-ups, and the like. The site should be easy to navigate, with a well-designed navigation menu that allows users to move around the site effortlessly.

Optimizing touchable elements

Tiny buttons on mobile sites are a common frustration for users. Instead of hitting the "X", they accidentally tap a banner ad and are redirected to a different page. Therefore, it's crucial to ensure that all touchable elements are large enough to be easily tapped with a finger.

While designing touchable elements, it's also important to create compelling and clear calls to action (CTAs). Examples of CTAs include "Learn More," "Contact Us Today," etc.

The fewer taps a user has to make to find what they're looking for, the better. This is why minimizing scrolling is essential. As mentioned in the previous point, the most important information should be placed at the top of the page. This is especially important when there are touchable elements on the page that users might want to avoid.

Page load speed

Page load speed is absolutely crucial. Users are impatient, and if a page doesn't load within a few seconds, they'll return to search results. To optimize load speed, we'll employ techniques such as image compression, removing unnecessary code, and utilizing browser caching.

Ease of form filling

It's no secret that most people prefer filling out important forms on a desktop or laptop — essentially, a larger screen (at least according to the author of this article). Completing countless fields, entering data, and being redirected to other pages is simply more convenient. However, there may be times when a computer isn't readily available and only a smartphone is at hand. In such cases, it's our responsibility as website owners to design forms that are easy to complete, even on smaller screens.

Features like autofill can be helpful. Additionally, limiting the number of fields that need to be completed can be beneficial, as overly long forms can be discouraging. It's also crucial to clearly communicate what information is required and why.

Offline accessibility

It's common to lose your internet connection, even if it's just for a short time. It's frustrating when this happens while you're looking for important information on a website. That's why it's beneficial to ensure that a website can still be viewed even when the internet connection is lost. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) can help achieve this. With PWAs, users can add a website to their home screen and use it like an app, even without an internet connection. When a user visits the website, its content is saved to the device's storage. This allows users to access the website even when they're offline.

Cross-device testing

Let's ensure that the website works on all operating systems — iOS, Android — and on both older and newer phone models. This is also connected to testing on different screen sizes, as some newer smartphones have exceptionally high resolutions.

Analytics setup

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows us to track user behavior on our website and make data-driven decisions to optimize it. We can see how users navigate the site, what they're looking for, and how long they stay. By analyzing this data, we can make changes to improve the user experience.

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