How to Design a Mobile Website? What are the Key Points to be kept in Mind while Designing the Mobile Site

It is rightly said by Brian Fling that the mobile devices have completely changed the way we interact with information. Mobile web browsing has become the next major internet platform as Google's Get Mo reports 400% increase in mobile searches since 2010. If one goes by the survey by Compuware, 71% of users expect their mobile site experience to be at par with their desktop experience.

There are more than 6 billion mobile phone users worldwide and almost 20 % of this user base is browsing internet on their devices. The fast increasing use of mobile platform for gathering information on brands, locations, online deals has forced the companies to focus on having mobile websites as well.

The web site design, structure and resolution generally used for the computer browsers are not compatible with that of the mobile devices. Therefore, while creating a mobile website, one has to focus on the content relevance and the user friendly UI and has to keep in mind the mobile data plans as it affects the loading time of the website.

Keeping in mind the perspective of the target audience and making a fast and responsive mobile site was one of our main motives while working for our client ITC Hotels. The client's main focus was on the information delivered, the speed and easy user accessibility of the website.

Keeping a track of all the limitations discussed above, we modified their existing internet site into a compatible mobile website .The layouts and the designs were changed accordingly and a supportable script was used which can be used in different mobile devices. The website was given a separate url i.e. m.itchotels.in which was easier to remember by the users.

The one column structure made it more appealing as it was easy to navigate. Introduction of a 'Read More' tab and a photo gallery that could adjust according to the different screen sizes, made it more user friendly. With the changes in the UI for the Bookings and Special Offers path made it more interesting.

We adhered to the phrase "Less is More" while creating this website which according to us, holds true to the mobile design.