The Internet is changing, and so is the way we get our information. We use to read newspapers, magazines, or watch the news on television. Not any more. The Internet changed all of that, and now smartphones are changing how we view the Internet.
More than half of US adults own a smartphone and within two years that will increase to over 80 percent. This is a large number of consumers with devices capable of accessing the Internet in the palm of their hand. Think about it, you even use your smartphone while watching television. It’s a fact! More than 80 percent of smartphone owners search the web while watching TV. With numbers this large it only makes sense to design your site for mobile devices.
Scenario: You are sitting around watching TV and surfing the web, you come across a site and you have to pinch to zoom in just to read the text; this sucks! Why not make you content readable without the zoom? Scrolling down feels natural to most web surfers, while pinching to zoom just feels uncomfortable. Some other things to consider when designing for mobile devices: Minimize you content to only the most specific and unique information that consumers are looking for. Most of us only scan websites anyway till we find what we are looking for. Use simple and bold headlines to catch the user’s eye, so they can find the content that is specific to them. Finally do not use large image files or flash video that slows down the page load. Nothing scares off users faster than a slow website.
Stat source: digby.com/mobile-statistics/
