Everyone’s Going Mobile-friendly Website Design

In the past—long before apps were a mainstream feature of day-to-day life—, companies did not consider the development of mobile-optimised websites to be of any real importance. Mobile sites were considered superfluous, a luxury add-on which only the very largest businesses would bother with. Times have changed.

The world has never been more mobile. Smartphones are no longer a fringe device for early-adopters, celebrities, and the super-rich; nowadays, in fact, it is far more common to have one than not to. The iPhone heralded in the Golden Age of mobile browsing and applications which we now enjoy, and with it came the need to radically rethink our approach to the mobile web and app design at large.

It is no longer enough to opt for a ‘that will do’ approach to mobile design. With hundreds of thousands of businesses commissioning expert design companies like Messapps to create dedicated apps solely for driving more customers to themselves, the competition is there, and the bar has been set. Mobile design—both in terms of websites and applications—requires at least as much attention, time, and investment as does your primary website.

We’ve all been there. You try to load up a website on your smartphone’s browser and find that the text is too small or isn’t loading, the images have vanished or are taking up the whole screen, and the whole site is, to be generous, a real shame. This simple frustration is often enough to push potential clients towards a competitor: if their site does the job, you had better believe that people who are used to browsing solely on their mobile device will head there before sitting through the 20-minute boot-cycle of their ancient, seldom-used PC! Having a top-quality presence in the mobile world has never been more essential, and will continue to be the backbone of many and varied businesses across all manner of professional interests and sectors. You wouldn’t settle for a poorly-designed, barely-functional primary web presence, so why—in a world in which more and more users are shifting their browsing habits to focus solely on mobile devices—would you let your mobile site ruin your brand image in one fell swoop?

The world of mobile apps is, in many ways, in the same place today that mobile websites were a few years ago. Aside from the big players, not every business has one, and people are only just cottoning on to quite how effective they can be both in terms of driving sales and, perhaps even more importantly, building brand loyalty and spreading the word as a marketing tool. With push notifications, there has never been a more direct, informal line available between the business owner and their clients: offers, reminders, news, and more can all be directed instantly before the eyes of an eager customer with just the press of a button.

If the very thought of app design and app development causes a mild panic to rise up, don’t worry! Many app design agencies exist who will take the load off your mind, and work with you to produce the very best representation of your company that can be made.