Mobile First - what does it mean?

There are various approaches that fold mobile into the website development process, each with their own philosophy and benefits. However, the nature of mobile, specifically its requirement for simplicity, makes it a logical place to start when defining a digital customer journey that will form the basis for an entire project.

We know this approach as ‘Mobile First’, and for us it’s a fundamental development approach that allows us to ensure the digital projects we deliver have longevity as well as great user experience. But why, what does mobile first really mean, and how many marketers actually take the time to think about its implications, its mechanics and its benefits?
 
Rather than designing a digital experience for the desktop and cutting scope when later adapting it to a mobile canvas, mobile first means working the other way, defining what functionality is most important and which content should be prioritised. The constraints of mobile, such as screen size and data speeds, force us to be more creative and focus more intently on what’s really important to our clients’ and their users.
 
The end result of this approach is a streamlined, effective user experience, with none of the extraneous bells and whistles that might otherwise face the chopping block when it’s time to downsize to a smaller screen.

Our recent campaign for Bassetts Soft and Chewy Vitamins required a landing page where customers could redeem an on-pack offer for soft play centres around the country. We approached the build in the same way we do all online projects, beginning with what was absolutely necessary for a mobile user, and building in additional content as screen size allowed.

In our experience, focusing on the attributes of mobile in this way brings significant improvements in overall online effectiveness. A focus on design and functional simplicity is required to properly leverage the physical form-factor of mobile, its immediacy and how it often only commands the user’s partial attention.
 
This focus sharpens the mind and encourages project teams to think about what the end-user really needs. In the projects we’ve worked on, the simplicity and customer-focus that a mobile optimised website requires are the foundations of efficient and effective online experiences.

Practicing ‘mobile first’ also has implications for ‘responsive design’, another important part of our mobile optimisation toolkit? Responsive sites use ‘CSS media queries’ and fluid layouts to detect the dimensions of the screen being used, then they ‘respond’ by adjusting the content accordingly.

Best practice increasingly recommends a mobile first approach to responsive design. That means focusing on the smaller screen and using media queries to adjust as screen sizes increase, allowing for progressive enhancement and building complexity as you go.

This helps us address mobile performance issues by ensuring assets such as large background images and complex interactive features aren’t downloaded onto the smaller mobile version where their reduced value in terms of experience might not be worth the amounts bandwidth they’ll eat up.

But mobile first thinking isn’t just about limitations; nor is it just about screen size. The personal and prevalent nature of mobile makes context the new crux of web design. Basic contextual questions such as where and when users are interacting with your site often lead to interesting insights about design and function.

Making assumptions on the content or functionality users might require based on where and when they’re online is the logical next step. You can surmise a lot from a user’s location; their likely purchasing intentions based on proximity of local businesses, the type of activities they might be likely to engage in based on whether they’re at an airport, a football stadium, a cinema or a post office.

A retail brand might infer that a customer, walking along a street, wants details of its nearest outlet. A rival retailer might guess that the same user, once in its competitor’s store, would appreciate bar-code scanning and price-checking functionality; perhaps even a special discount offer designed to lure business direct from the rival’s premises.

A smartphone is a more personal device than a desktop computer or even a tablet. Context means providing the right options at the right time, and brands that can supply a more contextually aware digital experience will develop the user relationship more effectively.

The technology exists to allow us to realise this, pulling subtle and valuable insight from the sea of big data that modern smartphone technology is becoming increasingly adept at capturing. But why worry about any of this? Why not do things the same way we always have?

With more powerful, personal devices becoming ubiquitous, mobile optimisation is no longer a niche field. The internet no longer fits snugly in a desktop box, and a number of major drivers of mobile industry development, like Google, are already explicitly supporting the mobile first approach.
 
While the benchmarks that define good experiences continue to rise, information and experience will be consumed in ever more dynamic, contextual mobile channels. And as a phone is the device most consistently at users’ fingertips, businesses and brands are increasingly defined by the quality and consistency of mobile customer experience they provide.

Sam is director of digital at Bray Leino. Read more on mobile in our Clubhouse.