In the past few years, you may still opt for using a fully responsive website or not; however, today it seems impossible to avoid using a fully responsive website. In fact, seamless navigation of your site has become one of the most important parts of providing an exceptional user experience to site visitors. This is because mobile users have taken the biggest part to access information. No wonder mobile-friendly navigation design is still high in demands nowadays. If you are a web designer who is interested in creating good navigation menus for small device, you can follow our tips below.
- Make It Simple
Mostly, people who rely on their daily activities on mobile devices do not have a lot of time; therefore, they only want to see what they are looking for on your website, without wasting time to click through a bunch of options to get there.
Remember that the longer your pages take time to load, the more likely your visitor is to bounce. Aim for three levels of navigation, or less, if you want to avoid visitors going elsewhere.
Another solution is to avoid using too many buttons for visitors on mobile devices to click on. For some people, too many buttons will clutter the screen, especially on those of mobile phones. You can also create mobile version to have less button with more nested menu instead.
- Avoid Making People Type
Today, where the world is going virtual, virtual keyboard has become one of the biggest annoyances, especially when you have to type to have so much information into a website or online app. In fact, according to a recent research, 90% of people will prefer to hold their mobile device in horizontal mode instead of landscape mode when typing.
If your website needs typing of some sort no matter what, try the following:
- Implement the “Remember username and password” function
- Utilize autofill capability to minimize typing
- Aim for geolocation services that automatically determine a user’s location
- Evaluate every field that requires typing and ensure that it is necessary
- Be Mindful of Icons
Believe it or not, but icons can have a major impact on the success of your website. Below are some of the benefits that icons would provide to your site’s overall design and functionality:
- Scalable without sacrificing quality
- Completely customizable
- 100% responsive by design
- Cross-browser friendly
- Usable via a mouse and on touchscreens
Furthermore, you have to look out on some icons, as not many icons are universally recognized. These icons can easily confuse site visitors and create navigation issues. For example, the triangle play symbol and “x” close button are widely used on website across the web. The hamburger symbol is also becoming more well-known across mobile device users.
However, icons such as the star or heart can have multiple meanings and may require icon labels so visitors clearly understand what they are designed to do.
- Be Clear
A good copywriting is essential for any website. It can help you with credibility, brand your company, affects your visitor’s perception of you, and serve the purpose of communicating to your targeted audience. However, situations are a little bit different when it comes to mobile devices and site visitors being able to effectively navigate through your website.
Good menu items should describe where a person will be taken to once clicking on them. However, in order to make things look trendy, many high-end companies create overly complicated menu. This results in losing a large percentage of their target audience because of over clicking and frustration.
- Consider a Filtering Option
Many major eCommerce sites apply a filtering option on their mobile sites to make navigating through the product pages, such as brand, color, size, and age range easier. As a result, the criteria will depend on the type of website you have.
Furthermore, you have to avoid any mention of page numbers. When looking for the perfect product, people do not want to be faced with the thought of having to navigate through dozens of pages is very real. Obviously, the reality that there are that many pages is very real.
You can also try a “View More Items” button or a continual scroll. This, if paired with appropriately applied filters will do wonders for the overall user experience.
- Improve Your Site’s Mobile Search
According to a study which is conducted by Google, 9 out of 10 smartphone users will take action after conducting a search, and approximately half of those will continue on to make a purchase. This study proves on how important mobile search functions are. However, most of us know that creating a mobile search is very different than creating a desktop search.
When optimizing your mobile site’s search navigation, you can take a look at some of the most important things, such as follows:
- Mobile searches are often local. That means, those with brick and mortar shops should optimize search results to show local content
- Those searching on their mobile device are looking to take more immediate action, that can mean that you should provide plenty of information in search results to help people make purchasing decisions
- Prevent any misspellings and include them in search results
- Manage a separate keyword list for your mobile users.
By creating a more mobile-friendly navigation design, hopefully you can achieve a better user experience because, as we know, mobile user is the biggest market among other devices, so, targeting mobile users is the right move to win the market.