Usability and User testing > Mobile Usability
With the number of people browsing the internet on their phone continuing to grow, it is becoming more and more important to develop a highly usable mobile site. It is important to understand that there is a big difference between a website that is mobile friendly and a website that has been designed for a mobile phone. A website that has been designed for a mobile phone will have different functionality from your normal website for a number of reasons:
- Mobile Devices have smaller screens
- Smaller screens means that information must be easy to remember and easy to reach since navigating can be difficult
- Typing on a mobile phone is harder – Site should contain more clickable links than text that needs to be typed. Also consider the fact that the individual does not have a mouse to navigate around the screen on a mobile device.
Additionally, pages of a mobile site download at a slower speed than your traditional computer. Therefore, including large amounts of images or other media on your mobile site can create a lesser user experience.
For these reasons testing users on numerous tasks on a mobile device is very important. Our testing includes asking the user several different tasks to complete on their device; much like we would on a regular computer; as well as, getting users to navigate through their device on their own. From their feedback we find ways of improving the user experience.
