As growth in all things mobile continues, with estimations of 1.82 billion Internet-enabled mobile devices by 2013, many more companies are creating mobile-friendly versions of their websites and or mobile applications. The decision to adapt to the mobile platform is dependent on your company objectives, the cost, potential reach of a mobile offering and the needs of your users. With mobile usage exploding, its not a question of whether your company should adapt to the mobile platform, but when and how.

Generally speaking, gaming and entertainment industries tend to publish mobile apps while the commerce and social networking industries favor mobile browsers. Mobile web and app pose unique challenges not only in terms of development and implementation but also in terms of familiarity and risk (real and perceived) and general acceptance by its users  Before tackling these issues, lets first figure out which one(s) make the most sense for your company.

How do mobile applications compare to mobile web sites?

A Mobile search company, predicts that mobile websites will grow faster than mobile applications.

While iPhone (and now Android) device sales are impressive, creating an iPhone-only application, for example, can alienate a large number of consumers as the iPhone is only expected to account for 10% of all mobile devices sold in 2010.

What is a company to do?

In addition to market share, businesses must consider the cost and maintenance involved in developing applications for a specific mobile Operating System (OS) and platform that may have different technical standards and revenue terms. Leading mobile platforms include iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Microsoft Windows, and Palm. Each platform has advantages and disadvantages that must be considered. In addition, if you are looking toward an international strategy, OS and platform market share may vary by country.

What about Mobile Web sites?

Gartner predicts that the mobile websites will become more popular than mobile applications by 2013. Moreover, com Score data reveals:

• 31.9% of all mobile subscribers used a Web browser on a mobile device in the three months ending in May 2010,up from 26% in the September 2009 three-month average; and
• 30% downloaded a mobile application in the three months ending in May, compared to 6.7% in the September 2009 three-month average.

What kinds of mobile web sites can I create?

Furthermore, there are four types of mobile web presences. Each can be part of your overall strategy but need to be matched to a specific objective.

1. Mobile versions of existing sites - Companies have built mobile websites, which offer nearly the same features as their traditional websites but are adapted to a handheld format. A textbook example is Facebook’s mobile website at m.facebook.com.

2. Plug-in-based mobile sites – Similar to the first category, blogs and websites based on WordPress, Drupal or similar open-source platforms can use free plug-ins, which format sites for mobile audiences.

3. Mobile landing pages – As the name suggests, these single-page entities can be created quickly to add a mobile-Web presence to a marketing campaign.

4. Dedicated mobile sites – These sites are standalone, multi-page entities, not mobile versions of a traditional website. They have their own designs and strategies to meet the needs of mobile visitors.

What risks are my users are most concerned about?

If your company is already in planning stages or has already deployed a mobile application and/or mobile web site, you are already in the game. Now, you only need to worry about user adoption and engagement.  So, kinds of risks concern most users? For starters, use of mobile devices for more advanced activities such as downloading apps, browsing the Internet and interacting with the other device owners are fairly new to the majority of the US market so the fear of newer technologies means users need added assurance. Next, users are apprehensive about sharing their information through a mobile device because of additional privacy issues that are not found on PC web sites due to location technologies. Finally, the size of the device requires even more creative ways to present information and also engage your users. A successful strategy will address all of the above issues and go further in alleviating user concerns to truly obtain user trust.

Does privacy differ for mobile websites and mobile applications?

In short, NO. Privacy is something that needs to be considered wherever you collect customer data, be it through your physical store, your traditional website or your mobile website. In all of these instances your data collection, management, storage and sharing (with 3^rd parties) needs to be well-defined and in accordance with the rules, regulations and laws around data privacy.

Remember, the foundation of privacy consists of transparency, accountability and choice. Its your responsibility to disclose any new information collected and shared as well as new uses of previously collected information such as the new processing techniques for data collected via a mobile website or mobile application.

How can I earn my users trust?

User trust must be earned by demonstrating:

1. You are transparent in the use of the data you have collected from your users;
2. You will be accountable for safeguarding the data you have collected from your users; and,
3. You will provide users with meaningful choices about the collection and use of their personal information.

When mobile initiatives are done right your users will reward you by not only downloading your application or accessing your mobile website more frequently through their mobile devices; but also by more deeply engaging with your content and services. In an era of heightened awareness of privacy and a fiercely competitive mobile space, being able to differentiate your application or mobile website by demonstrating your trusted status can only help your bottom line.

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Website or App?

That is the question. An app has its advantages mainly in user experience, potential off-line usage, and customer retention. But considering more in-depth design and development for apps across mobile platforms, we’ll focus this article on mobile websites.

Mobile websites are most likely what you’ll be developing for your client base, unless they have customers highly invested in their brand that would likely justify downloading and installing an app. Mobile websites are easier and faster to develop and deploy. They are also accessible by any device with web browsing capability.

Designing for a Smaller Screen Size

When designing for mobile device screens, you must take into considerations the smaller size of the screen. This will be difficult for those among us who are used to designing for large HD monitors with capability to display graphics at 1920X1200 or higher.

Today’s iPhone 4 has a resolution of 640 x 960, with the iPad a bit higher at 1024 x 768. But those resolutions are high in comparison to other devices. Some of the Android and Blackberry phones feature a screen size at 320×240. That’s considerably smaller than what we’re used to designing for, but it’s crucial to keep in mind as you set out to design your mobile website.

Consider Poor Connectivity

Remember a few years back before broadband internet was available in every corner coffee shop, and web designers had to consider the users connection a little closer when optimizing images and video for faster load time. You’ll need to do the same when designing for your mobile site.

Service providers are rolling out faster speeds all the time, but coverage still remains spotty at best in some areas. Plus some users, who do not have unlimited data plans, pay for data downloads. So as developers we must think back to those early modem days. You’ll need reduce code, and remove unnecessary tags and comments. Keep images small, and compressed for lighter download times.

Choose a Separate URL for Your Mobile Site

If you’re building a completely separate site for mobile devices, consider choosing a URL for the new site. For example, http://www.yoursite.com/mobile or if you can add custom sub domains to your exiting domain try something like http://mobile.yoursite.com.

Keeping a simple structure like the above for your URL helps make the user experience easier to follow and remember.

Detect And Redirect Users

Detecting if a user is mobile or not and sending them to the correct site is important to keep the experience seamless.If you have your own method for device detection, please feel free to share in the comments below.

Consider a Mobile Friendly 1 Column Page Structure

When a page loads on a phone it is typically zoomed all the way out so that it all fits onto the screen. The screens on most all phones are so small that the page can not be read until it is zoomed in. This isn’t ideal because it creates more steps for the user while reading your content. Typically they will have to scroll both vertical and horizontal while reading.

Instead try implementing a one column layout that fits within a mobile screen. The user will still likely have to scroll, but it will only be vertical.

Simplify and Optimize Your Content

Again, think light and simple. Keep a less is more mentality when organizing your content and page structure. Consider removing extra links and content that are not within the main content area. Items typically found in the sidebar or footer of traditional sites can often be removed so that the focus is streamlined and simplified.

By removing this type of content you are also reducing the page size and load time, which is an important aspect of mobile page design.

Reduce Your Navigation and User Input

User input can be difficult on some phones. It’s not as fast as a traditional keyboard, and users are more likely to make mistakes. Given that, we can make a few adjustments to reduce the amount of input needed from the user. For example, information can be pulled from a user’s existing account during a checkout process. Navigation can be reduced to a drop down menu. We can also take advantage of a phone’s built in functionality, see more below on this.

Avoid Absolute Sizes

When designing for smaller screens avoid defining dimensions in absolute pixels. For example if you define a width of 200px, that may be the majority of the screen on some phones. Try using relative sizes like ems and percentages, so that the size will auto-adjust.

Avoid Scrolling… Really?

In my opinion you simply can’t avoid all scrolling in most instances, given the smaller screen size of mobile devices, but you can make some adjustments to reduce the scrolling. Creating a 1 column layout as mentioned above to keep scrolling vertical is ideal. Reducing the amount of images and extra content on the page is another good suggestion. Also consider extra content in the header, such as logos and navigation, these can push content further down the page causing unnecessary scroll.

Designing for Touch Screen

Touch screens on smartphone help improve the user experience, except when it comes tapping very small buttons and text links. Fingers are typically too wide to accurately tap a small text link. For important links and navigation consider using large buttons that span the width of the screen.

Choosing the Right Font for Your Content

With the ability to embed fonts into our webpages, it is essential to choose a font that is readable on a small screen. Avoid script and handwritten fonts, even for titles or text that is intended to be larger. Even larger text appears small on a phone.

Also consider the appropriate amount of letter spacing and line spacing to keep your content as readable as possible.

Flash, Java, Frames and Pop Ups are Out the Window

Most mobile devices do not support, Flash, Java Applets, frames and pop ups. Avoid these technologies when developing your mobile site. If you’re married to Flash now may be the time to cut the cord. With Adobe’s recent announcement that it has ceased the development ofFlash Player for browsers on mobile devices.

More than 1 Mobile Site?

With the ability to detect device types it raises the question on whether or not to develop more than one mobile site. For example you may want to create a site for more modern smartphone such as the iPhone and Android, and an even more reduced site for older, less capable phones. By doing so you’ve created an experience tailored to the users device.

Use the Phones Built in Functionality to Your Advantage

This is where you can take advantage of viewing your site from a mobile phone. Phones can do things that PCs can’t, so use them whenever possible to improve your user’s experience.

For example:

- Make phone numbers clickable to place a call.
- Give the user the ability to find you on a map, or find the nearest place to locate your product, etc…
- Use special features such as QR or bar code scanning.

A Look at Mobile CSS

Below are some general tips for CSS considerations when designing for mobile.

- Set your wrapper widths to percentages versus fixed widths so that your page will wrap to various screen sizes.
- Set paragraphs, headings and navigation to display block to fill the screen.
- Mobile Safari doesn’t fully support @font-face.
- Take a look at CSS3 Media Queries for creating a mobile version of your site.
- Remember to keep things simple and streamlined.

Designing for iPhone

The iPhone has a significantly large portion of the market share when it comes to mobile devices.

When building sites specfically For iPhone you’ll need to target their screen size. The screen size is set to 320px by 480px for older iPhones and 640px by 960px for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

Using CSS3 media queries you can add styles to your site’s main stylesheet that will only effect iPhone.

Consider the Device Orientation

With iPhones and other modern smart phones you can change the screen orientation from portrait to landscape by tilting the phone on its side. This is one more reason to keep your site layout fluid so that it will fill the space no mater what the screens orientation is.

Mobile jQuery

If you’re a front end developer than you’re already familiar with the power of jQuery, and it’s write less do more mentality. The same goes for the new jQuery Mobile.

A unified, HTML5-based user interface system for all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design.

This framework is worth a serious look if your planning to develop a robust user experience within your mobile site.

Mobile UI Kits and Icons

If your brain leans a little more to the development side of things versus the world of design, fear not. There are plenty of stock UI kits available for mobile web.

How to Test Your Mobile Website

• By 2012 there will be more smartphones connected to the internet than PCs.
• 42% of the US uses a smartphone.
• 14% of smartphone users look for restaurants on their phones.
• iPhone users spend 55% of their time on the mobile web or in apps.
• 500 million people never use a PC to access the web and only use a phone.

Research company Compete, a Kantar Media company has released the results of its first-quarter 2010 Smartphone Intelligence Survey, which studies how consumers are using iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android devices, and other smart phones.

The survey found consumers increasingly rely on their mobile phones to search for retailers. Nearly one in three smartphone owners has called or stopped into a local business after finding it using a local search application, according to the results of the survey. In Q1 alone, close to a third of Android and iPhone owners discovered at least two new businesses that they were not previously aware of as a result of using local search applications.

“With the increasing popularity of local search, retailers should ensure their sites are optimized for mobile browsers,” said Compete’s director of technology and entertainment Danielle Nohe. “Making it easy for consumers to discover businesses via their devices opens local companies up to a whole new customer demographic, and savvy businesses should make sure they’re maximizing this opportunity.”

The survey also found that smartphone owners are comfortable making purchases from their handsets but are inhibited by poor mobile site functionality. Another common activity for which the smartphone came in handy was to access consumer reviews. The survey results show that although m-commerce is destined to grow immensely, consumers may abandon mobile purchasing on sites that are not optimized for on-the-go experience.

The key result: consumers are now turning to their phones to discover local businesses. Businesses must shift their marketing strategy to accommodate the growing mobile landscape, or risk being left behind

61% of users are unlikely to return to a site that isn’t mobile friendly². It’s important to remember that even if users can see a website on a smartphone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Your users are going mobile as we speak, and so the most important thing you can do to grow your business using the mobile web is to create a mobile-friendly website.

Here are ten tips to help you design a mobile-friendly site:

1. Keep it quick - Design your site to load fast and make copy easy to scan
2. Simplify navigation - Create clear navigation and search functionalities
3. Be thumb-friendly - Design your site so any size hand can easily interact with it
4. Design for visibility - Make it easy for your customers to read
5. Make it accessible - Mobile sites should work across all mobile devices
6. Make it easy to convert - Create clear ways for your users to make purchases or contact you
7. Make it local - Consumers look for local info on their phones all the time
8. Make it seamless - Convert as much of the functionality of your desktop site to mobile
9. Use mobile site redirects - Ensure that visitors who visit your website from a mobile device are redirected to your mobile-friendly site
10. Listen, learn and iterate - Make testing and optimization an ongoing process

In comparison, a similar report published on the European market showed that 22.2% of mobile consumers use their mobiles to browse mobile websites. This was the fourth most popular function after sending SMS messages (83.5%), using downloaded applications (33.4%) and listening to music (22.7%).

Also, these figures vary quite significantly from country to country, with mobile browsing being more popular in the UK (30.8%). Mobile browsing is much less in popular in Germany (17.4%) where using downloaded mobile applications is a lot more popular (33.3%).

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The ideal solution would be for every website to be scaleable to any device, and with some devices this does happen thanks to built-in web browsers, but not all and that means needing to look at designing a mobile site that can work on the majority if not all mobile devices.  The way in which your website is delivered and the user experience is of key importance – usability applies as much with mobile websites as it does to standard web design.  The way in which we interact with mobile devices is very different to the way in which we use a pc, the lack of a mouse being just one of the big differences.  It should also be noted that mobile networks do not run at the same speeds as we are used to with broadband devices and that will have an impact on the length of time pages take to load.

With the rapid growth in the mobile internet market has come an influx of designers and specialist mobile web hosting companies. There is no requirement for special mobile hosting; a mobile site can be hosted on any server. However, not all web hosting firms offer mobile web services and tools to help you develop and maintain your site.  And unlike standard dedicated web hosting there are some features which are unique to mobile web hosting.

With mobile hosting you will still be able to store all your site files and of course be capable of delivering them to visitor’s devices.   However, where mobile hosting differs is in its ability to detect a visitor’s device and deliver a version of your site that best suits it.  For instance a visitor using a tablet will be shown the mobile version of your website, whilst a visitor using a laptop or pc will see the desktop version, this ensures visitors to your site see the best version for the device they use to access it.

By using mobile web hosting you can ensure this is handled for you with the web server set to detect the device a visitor is using and deliver the appropriate version.  But it goes further than this.  With mobile devices all having their own unique features and user capabilities your mobile website needs to be able to adapt to different device makes and models ensuring your website is delivered in a way which is appropriate to that particular device.  This is known as content adaptation and essentially means your website content is adjusted to best suit the device a visitor uses.

As mobile internet usage increases the demand for mobile websites that ‘fit’ with numerous devices will increase which means content adaptation will become more important.  Currently businesses looking to offer mobile sites are presented with a range of options and much will depend on their business model and what they want to offer.  What is important is that your design and choice of web hosting, ensures accessibility and a user experience that visitors will enjoy.

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Flurry compared its mobile data to stats from comScore and Alexa, and found that in June, consumers spent 81 minutes per day using mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes of web surfing. (See chart below.) The shift comes as combined tablet and smartphone shipments eclipsed those of desktops and notebooks for the first time, according to a recent report by Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Flurry found consumers spend 9% more time, on average, using mobile apps. The report found that the growth in mobile app usage came mostly from more sessions per user, rather than longer sessions overall.

Those sessions, by and large, are consumed by the use of games and social media apps, which took 47% and 32% of the total amount of time used for such apps.

If the stats bear out, the data is vindication for Wired, which last year declared “The Web is Dead,” and predicted that apps would soon overtake it.

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1. Customers have an inclination towards the mobile web surfing

• Number of mobile web users
  It is estimated that the mobile web users would surpass the number of internet users on the desktop PCs by 2013.
• Mobile web search
  The thirst for knowledge doesn’t stop when you step away from your computer, it continues on your mobile device. In the past two years, mobile search traffic has grown five-fold.

• Mobile handset per person
  There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that’s 77 percent of the world population). Looking at the current trend, it is also predicted that by 2015, every individual on this planet would at least have one mobile handset which would certainly boost your traffic.

2. Expectation of a better mobile web browsing experience

• Website load time
  60% of the mobile web users expect the download time of the mobile websites to be 3 seconds or even less.
• Faster load time
  71% of the mobile web users expect a mobile site to load faster than a website which is compatible with the desktops or laptops.
• Number of re-tries
  Only 78% of the users would try to load a website as a result of slow downloads.
  Analyzing the current web search pattern, it is noticed that the website loading time is extremely essential for the users else they would switch from one website to another which would inherently affect the bounce rate of the website.

3. Word-of-mouth referrals

• Bad mobile site
  57% of the users would not speak positive about a company that provides an uninviting mobile web experience.
  It is important to optimize your mobile friendly website; else you may lose some of your customers. Reputation of a company largely depends on the perceptions of its target audience. It is advisable to make a productive use of every medium of communication that you are using. Mobile sites hence become one area to target your prospects effectively.
• Bad mobile web experience
  A statistic also states that around 40% of the users would jump to a competitor’s site if they are not satisfied with your mobile web experience.
• Frustration of users on their mobile phones due to a slow download
  23% of the users got irritated with their mobile handsets when they could not load a mobile site on their mobile handsets.
  This is essentially because we all have become so dependent on our mobile devices that it is nearly impossible to imagine a life without our mobile phones and a mobile friendly site helps us gather the required information even on the move.

4. A medium to grow your local business

• Local information on Smartphones
  95% of the users connect to a mobile site to fetch some local information using their Smartphones.
  People prefer to do mobile web search especially to collect important information of a nearly outlet, or restaurant, or real estate agent, or to know the departure time of their flight etc.
• Acquire useful information
  61% of the users reach a business/company after acquiring useful information about that company on their mobile devices whereas 59% of the users actually visit the location.
• Take the desired action
  94% of the users take the desired action- enquire about a company, purchase the products/services etc. within 24 hours.
  As an entrepreneur, you can expect instant response by your target audience as most the users explore the mobile web when they are on the move. A mobile site can be said to be a good call-to-action tool.

5. Mobile apps are good to explore but can’t undermine the significance of a mobile site

• Mobile site better than a mobile app
  81% of the users use the mobile sites rather than mobile apps to do price comparisons.
• Product reviews
  79% of the people use the mobile sites to obtain product reviews.
• Favor m-commerce
  63% of the users do e-shopping via their mobile devices.

6. Mobile friendly websites can boost your m-commerce business

• Mobile web search resulting in sale of a product/service
  50% of the users are believed to purchase a product or hire a service using the mobile web.

EMarketer has forecast that total US search ad revenues will reach just over $17 billion in 2012. If we do the simple math, and assume that mobile spending doesn’t add anything more to overall revenue growth, here’s what we get under EFF’s two mobile scenarios:

• 22 percent: $3.7 billion
• 16 percent: $2.7 billion

It’s worth noting that tablets already account for a significant portion of mobile search ad spending, as well as mobile clicks:

Efficient Frontier is seeing a sharp ramp in its search spend on Tablet devices. Over the past three months (Aug 2011 – Oct 2011), Tablets accounted for 43% of Efficient Frontier’s mobile search spend, and 50% of click share.

Google stands to be the beneficiary of mobile search revenue growth, at a disproportionate level vs rivals. Among EFF’s client base more than 95 percent of mobile search ad spending goes to Google.

This is commensurate with and a direct result of Google dominating mobile search. According to StatCounter Google controls about 95 percent of browser-based mobile search in North America.

Summarizing EFF’s lengthy discussion of mobile paid-search performance, mobile ads have higher CPCs and better CTRs but mobile ROI is less because of lower conversion levels:

• Across its advertiser clients, Efficient Frontier found that the average CPC on mobile phone search campaigns was actually slightly above (8% higher) than CPCs for desktop search campaigns.
• Mobile phone and tablet click-through rates for Efficient Frontier’s search advertisers are higher than for its desktop search campaigns, at 166% and 137%, respectively, of CTRs in desktop search.
• Lower conversions for mobile search campaigns result in ROI that is only 50% of the ROI for desktop campaigns according to Efficient Frontier’s data. Notably, 50% represents a significant improvement for this metric compared with mid-2010, when mobile ROI was only ~10% of desktop levels.

There’s a major caveat here however. ROI on mobile campaigns is being measured by traditional “conversion” metrics used on PC campaigns. EFF points out that a broader and more mobile-specific set of conversion metrics needs to be developed to evaluate the true efficacy of mobile search ads:

Until advertisers can more accurately attribute a wider range of “success” events such as offline store visits, offline and (delayed) online (desktop) sales, and phone calls to a mobile ad campaign, marketers using a traditional ROI-based approach to make campaign budget decisions will be less willing to increase mobile ad budgets. In the meantime, we expect “early adopter” mobile marketers will continue to test mobile as both a performance-based and branding ad medium.

EFF also compared query length on the PC, tablets and mobile devices. As was somewhat predictable, EFF found that PC queries are the longest, followed by tablets and mobile handsets in that order. It’s possible, however, that voice search may create longer and more specific mobile query strings in the future.

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Users that find themselves away from home may even find themselves accessing websites exclusively from a mobile device. From shopping to finding local services, mobile internet usage is no longer relegated to checking email. Unfortunately, mobile devices don’t always display websites in the same manner a normal PC would. In some cases, a standard website may be unusable on a mobile device. For these reasons, it’s important to be mindful of mobile users when building a website. Here are some more statistics attached to show why its important to have a mobile friendly website.

• In August 2011 mobile browsing represented 7.1% of all worldwide browsing activity.
• Between 2/2009 and 8/2011, mobile browser share grew by 1000%.
• Approx. 25% (1 in 4) of mobile users expect to access the web from their device at least once a day.
• For online-only retailers, a mobile site can increase consumer engagement by as much as 85%.
• Website visitors are 51% more likely to do business with an online retailer if it has a mobile site.
• Mobile users are 88% more likely to do business with Auto Dealers if the website is optimized for mobile.
• People uses Mobile devices nto only to access Emails but they also use these to stay connected  Social networking sites, Stream videos, and also to carry out different kind of searching starting from a simple food outlet to property.
• In 2011 it was estimated that only 22% of the Alexa top 500 websites have optimized for mobile.