Most of us are already mobile-optimizing our websites, but that doesn’t necessarily mean what you have is meeting your users’ needs. To make sure your website is up to standards, here are the seven must-know responsive design best practices that will help you make sure your websites offer top-level experiences across all devices in 2020! 1. Minimize and prioritize Constrained by size, mobile devices simply don’t offer the most real estate to work with when it comes to content and imagery. When you think of a website page for desktop, there is always a natural desire to break down the information we need to display into the ‘sections’. Think of these sections as paragraphs in a news article. This way you can easily able to break down and read each part of the page without any confusion. 2. Make your bottom of the funnel call-to-action (CTA) easy to find Your business website likely has a particular main call-to-action you want your users to complete. Maybe it’s to purchase a piece of software, schedule a consultation, or sign up for your app. To drive people to complete this goal, you likely have a main call-to-action featured in your navigation and throughout your site, especially on desktop. If you’re tracking your CTAs, you’ll probably notice your navigation button is one of the primary ways people make it to that gateway page where they would convert. So naturally, it’s pretty critical to have that button there at all times. 3. Use scalable vector graphics (SVGs) SVGs or Scalable Vector Graphics are the most vital component for any responsive design that is utilizing illustrations or icons. Unlike image files (JPG/PNG), SVGs are infinitely scalable. You can rest easy knowing that any icon or graphic will remain ultra-sharp across all experiences without having to ever worry about resolution or pixelation. This results in a consistently polished look no matter how the site is being viewed. Furthermore, SVGs often have a smaller file size, which helps your site load faster. Nobody wants to sit on their phone and watch an image buffer because of how large it is. 4. Standardize clickable areas and buttons On mobile, buttons and links will be tapped by a human finger, not by a precise mouse click – so interactive areas need to have a larger areas to accommodate this difference. How large do they need to be? Well, that’s dependent on the user, but on average, it’s recommended that any clickable element on a mobile device be at least 48 pixels in height. This means you need to optimize for buttons, form inputs, inline links on blogs, card layouts, navigation links, and more. 5. Responsive imagery Different devices have different image size needs. A desktop page may need an image 1200px wide at full resolution, while the mobile version of that page may only need that image at 400px wide. That’s effectively a third of the physical size, which roughly translates to a third of the file size as well. That’s an important thing to keep in mind. The old way of loading image was to load the large pixel resolution (1200px) image, and then just use that same file across all device platforms – but these large files can slow your site load time down dramatically. For a device-optimized responsive experience, it’s best to use two different versions of the same image for mobile and desktop. 6. Think typography It’s important to consider the legibility of your site across all platforms and devices, but on mobile, you need to be much more attentive to your users’ readability needs. If people can’t read your value proposition or any of your content, for that matter, they most likely won’t stick around. You want to make sure the content is easy to read and truly optimized for the device size so visitors aren’t left squinting. This also means taking note of the typefaces you’d like to use on your site, and whether they’d make for good or bad legibility on small screens. Remember to balance the headings and body font sizes for the size of the device too. You don’t want your font sizes to feel drastically different from one another to the point where it feels awkward and unnatural to read. 7. Take advantage of device features On smartphones, you have the ability to do a variety of tasks. You can make phone calls, send text messages, and open apps – all directly from the browser. Take the advantage of these capabilities on your web page to not only enhance your mobile device experience for users but even increase conversions and encourage action. For example, while using on a desktop, you may list the phone number. On the mobile version of that site, you may want to list the phone number inside a button or clickable area that it will automatically call when clicked. This idea can also be applied to email addresses, opening a new message in an email app with an auto-filled recipient when clicked. All of this can make it tremendously easier for your visitors to connect and communicate with you. Maybe a full redesign is in order to make your site a responsive superstar. Still not sure? Let’s talk! Web design company in Bangladesh happy to help you figure things out for this year and beyond.