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The trend is unmistakable: two thirds of all online purchases are made on mobile devices. Sellers can help keep their customers satisfied by using a responsive design for all mobile devices. The following tips help you improve your online store's usability and increase your business' long-term success.
Tip 1: Keep it simple
Remember that your customers probably have a slower Internet connection on their smartphone than on their desktop PC. Rather than using a mouse, your customers are relying on a touchscreen to navigate through the store. When it comes to usability, you should aim to keep your online store as simple as possible while still having an attractive and informative design. Make simplicity your top priority and make sure it begins with a good navigation. The navigation should be clearly structured and include easily recognisable terms that your customers will understand intuitively. Remember that your customers are probably using their thumbs to swipe over the screen. This makes links a bad design element for mobile devices. Customers will have more difficulty using their thumbs to click on links than on larger buttons.
Simplicity is also important when it comes to texts. Take into account that your customers are not reading, but are rather scanning the words and searching for relevant content. Short, concise headings and clear instructions will help your customers find the information they are looking for. Lastly, structure your text in short paragraphs and use bold font and lists to format the content.
Tip 2: Make carousels recognisable
Carousels are a type of image gallery, which users can swipe to move from one image to the next. Such touch-friendly sliders are great for mobile online stores. Modern smartphone users intuitively know that they can interact with the design element by swiping horizontally. However, this will only be the case if you make carousels recognisable. For example, Apple recommends using a so-called "page indicator" underneath the carousel. This simple row of dots lets the user know how many elements are included in the carousel and which element is currently being displayed.
Tip 3: Bring your images to life
Due to their compact screen size, mobile devices give you much less room for error than desktop PCs. This is especially true for smartphones. Therefore, it's even more important to use the space as wisely as possible. Make sure that you avoid adding too much white space around images. This gives your images the illusion of being even smaller than they already are on a mobile screen. It also makes your design feel chaotic and disorganised. Your customers will have to zoom in and out unnecessarily in order to recognise the product they are looking for.
Make sure that your preview images have a lower resolution so that your site loads quickly. Furthermore, remember that modern customers are familiar with standard gestures and that they will want to use them to interact with your store intuitively. This is equally important when it comes to zooming in and out on images. Customers should be able to tap, drag and pinch to see more detailed information about a product.
If you have multiple images, make sure that customers can swipe from one image to the next without exiting the zoom function. Customers should not be forced to close one image before opening the next. Also make sure that your customers intuitively understand how to exit the zoom function once they have finished looking at your images. Otherwise your customers are likely to change their minds about making a purchase in your store. This can be just as discouraging for customers as it is for you.
Online stores work well on mobile devices if they are fast, simple and intuitive to use. Such stores make good use of limited space, especially when it comes to images. Pay attention to simplicity and clarity to make sure that your customers have a great mobile shopping experience!