How to Make a Website Mobile Friendly?

Studies highlight the significance of mobile devices in everyday use since over 17.72 billion such units are distributed worldwide. Today, mobile devices are accountable for nearly 60% of all global internet traffic on average and can reach up to 80% in KSA and other developed regions. These facts alone make mobile-friendly design crucial for user experience on websites. That’s why it’s absolutely essential for leadership as well as tech specialists to be well-versed with the best mobile-friendly website practices. 

In this post, you’ll discover more about the concept of mobile friendliness and how making your website mobile optimized can drive business benefits. Besides, you’ll explore how to test whether your website is mobile friendly and 8 development and UI/UX design practices on how to optimize your website for mobile. 

What Does Mobile Friendly Actually Mean?

Let’s get started by examining the very concept in the focus:

Mobile friendliness is the ability of a website or application to provide a smooth, efficient, and user-friendly experience across a multitude of mobile devices. 

Basically, when a website is easily accessible and functional, and published content is easily readable regardless of a mobile device’s screen size — that’s when a web resource can be claimed to be a mobile-friendly one. 

But why even care that much for the smoothness of your online platform? Well, aside from the fact that mobile devices dominate when it comes to internet traffic, of course. The list of positive effects intended to be achieved with mobile friendly website design is shown in the image below: 

As you can observe, the usefulness of having a mobile friendly website really goes beyond the mere smoothness of customer experience or accessibility of your web resource in general. 

How to Check If Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

If you are wondering, “What is the best way to make my website mobile friendly?” one method for determining it is to review the supporting documents of the templates you’re using or simply load it from various mobile devices (if you have friends with different phones, you’re in luck). However, this does not imply that you are completely prepared for mobile consumers.

The design is important, but you also need to know how quickly your mobile site loads. There are a lot of internet tests that will tell you how well your site performs.

Here’s the procedure for the manual testing of your website for mobile-friendliness:

1. Open the website on a mobile device and test how it’s displayed on different screen sizes and operating systems (iOS, Android). Alternatively, open an admin view via a laptop or a desktop computer and then utilize the “Inspect” functionality. This way, you’ll have the functionality to test a website on many virtual mobile devices. 
2. Check layout responsiveness and ensure the layout adjusts seamlessly without horizontal scrolling or overlapping elements.
3. Verify that text sizes are easy to read without zooming in or straining.
4. Inspect navigation to ensure that menus, buttons, and links are easy to tap and not too close together.
5. Test interactive elements like forms, dropdowns, and other components for proper functionality.
6. Check that pop-ups or ads don’t obstruct content and are easy to close.
7. Check features like screen reader compatibility, alt text, and contrast ratios for inclusivity.
8. Verify images and media to confirm that images and videos resize correctly and do not affect performance.
9. Test for touch gestures by interacting with swipeable elements or zoom features to ensure they work as expected.
10. Perform cross-browser checks by testing on different mobile browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.) to ensure compatibility.

Additionally, the DashDevs team highly recommends running the Lighthouse audit in Chrome DevTools, which requires only the URL of your site. Google will run testing on several factors, including performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO, and provide you with a mobile usability report. This report will highlight areas in which your website might need optimization. The report overview example is shown in the image below:

Source: Developer.chrome

Moreover, there’s another useful tool I’d highly recommend using — Google PageSpeed Insights. Once again, you need just the URL of your site to analyze it. Google PageSpeed Insights can provide you with an estimation of website speed across several parameters. It also provides a rendered mobile screenshot of your main website page, where you can see whether your website is displayed on mobile devices correctly.

Important note: Consider that the performance of your website assessed by Lighthouse is affected by the Internet connection of a device running the audit. That’s why there’s a probability of bias. Meanwhile, Google PageSpeed reveals performance tracked by actual users’ visits to your website, so this tool is more reliable. Consider using Lighthouse on the local host shortly after the website release only. 

Now that it’s revealed what website mobile friendly concept actually means and how to know whether your website is optimized, let’s move forward to exploring how to make the website mobile friendly based on practical experience. 

Best Front-End and UI/UX Design Improvements to Make a Mobile Friendly Website

Mobile devices come in numerous sizes and proportions. That’s why transitioning designs from a computer to a mobile device, components, proportions, and layouts pose unique design challenges. Successful adoption requires precise adjustments to maintain usability and aesthetic consistency across different screen dimensions. From the front-end perspective, ensuring that a website is mobile-friendly may also be troublesome, affecting aspects of website orientation, navigation, and layouts. 

It’s safe to claim that in mobile site development, front-end and UI/UX design are tightly related, with the back-end fueling it up, and therefore, should be discussed in a union. So, let’s explore how to make website mobile friendly by implementing the 8 best front-end and UI/UX design practices:

#1 Prioritize Finger-Friendly Design Elements

There’s a UI/UX “fat-finger rule” that emphasizes inclusivity for users with hand deformations or fingers of varying sizes. Basically, when making a website mobile-friendly, we keep in mind that not every user can click on buttons effortlessly. That’s why adopting a conventional size of 48x48 pixels for interactive elements is crucial. This standard size ensures buttons are large enough for accurate tapping.

Moreover, it’s essential to carefully consider button placement and leave a reasonable amount of free space around buttoins preventing accidental clicks and improving usability. 

Bits of practical experience: Across our many success stories, including Vidby Call Translator, Whippy, an AI customer support bot, and MyIODD, a retirement planning platform, we implemented from scratch or optimized the button sizes so they correspond to the mentioned standard size and are finger-friendly. That was conducted along with many other improvements. 

#2 Simplify Navigation

Creating mobile-friendly website navigation requires rethinking traditional desktop approaches as on mobile, there’s simply no possibility to, for example, utilize multiple windows. That’s why mobile website navigation should focus on clear, intuitive pathways to reduce user effort. 

To achieve efficient navigation, front-end developers and designers implement hamburger menus or bottom navigation bars to save screen space while ensuring all key options remain accessible. For enhanced usability, include “sticky” navigation bars that stay visible as users scroll, providing constant access to key actions. The design goal is to create the simplest possible user journey, with navigation accessible in just a few taps, allowing users to move seamlessly from tab to tab without confusion.

DashDevs team utilized the mentioned simplified navigation principles during the development of websites for a global hospitality payment solution, for MyIODD, a retirement planning platform, and for many other our customers. 

Should you need assistance with a website, don’t hesitate to request web development services from DashDevs. 

#3 Implement Lazy Loading for Images and Content

Lazy loading is a web development technique where non-critical resources, such as images, videos, or scripts, are only loaded when they are needed — typically when they come into the user’s viewport. This approach is an alternative to loading all the page content at once.

Lazy loading improves initial page load times, reduces bandwidth usage, and enhances the user experience, especially on mobile devices or slow networks.

When it comes to lazy loading, here’s what DashDevs can recommend:

• Prioritize above-the-fold content to ensure the visible section of the page loads instantly, keeping users engaged.
• Use lazy-loading techniques such as loading=“lazy” attributes in HTML for images or dynamic content loading for heavier resources like videos and animations.

Lazy loading improves initial page load times, reduces bandwidth usage, and enhances the user experience, especially on mobile devices or slow networks. Ultimately, when creating DashDevs website, we incorporated lazy loading at a high scale, which you may test yourself by visiting more of our blog post pages or our services pages 

#4 Prioritize the Use of Flexible Layouts

Another aspect concerning how to make a web page mobile friendly is orientation flexibility. As stated previously, mobile devices come in different sizes with varying proportions and in both portrait and landscape orientations. Altogether, that created quite a lot of complexity layers to manage. 

Flexible layouts that utilize responsive 4, 8, or 12-column layout grid systems and either the Z-pattern or F-pattern can be set to be resized automatically to fit different screen sizes and scales. Complemented with a propper organization of information strategically, and a careful placement of elements, a flexible layout maintains website usability across different devices.

Bits of practical experience: For example, the DashDevs website utilizes the 12-column grid system for responsible layouts, instead or a simple 4 or 8-column grids. That’s how we achieve a high degree of flexibility across various devices. 

#5 Enable Orientation Flexibility

Getting back to the issue of portrait and landscape orientations, we should touch upon orientation flexibility UI/UX design practices in making a mobile website. 

Enabling orientation flexibility means designing a website to work seamlessly in both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) modes on mobile devices. When users rotate their mobile screens, the website’s layout, functionality, and design elements should automatically adapt to fit the new orientation without issues like misaligned content or broken designs.

Flexible layouts support orientation flexibility as a part of resizing and scaling procedures. However, key elements, such as forms and videos, should be tested extensively in both views to ensure proper functionality and visual consistency. In other words, they should correspond to fluid design practices, which may necessitate the usage of specialized tools.

#6 Optimize the Website Feed

Optimizing the website feed means improving the performance and usability of a website’s dynamic content delivery, particularly the scrolling content or updates users see on pages like newsfeeds, product lists, or social media feeds. 

Optimizing the website feed is a rather broad concept that encompasses a range of procedures that need to be implemented. As such, it’s necessary to utilize a mix of content compression and conversion into more web-friendly formats with browser caching practices. Also, it’s vital to ensure a minimal resource overhead, i.e., consumption of computational resources. 

Bits of practical experience: Aside from compressing images, DashDevs utilizes the JSON format for animations and SVG format for illustrations, which are the optimal formats for making websites faster and more mobile-friendly. 

For additional information on website performance optimization through mobile-first design, access the corresponding blog post by DashDevs. 

#7 Ensure an Optimal Design Readability and Contrast 

Designing for readability requires careful consideration of text and component sizes to accommodate differences between web and mobile platforms. Use a minimum font size of 16px for body text and scale for headings accordingly to establish hierarchy. Ensure text contrast meets WCAG standards (e.g., a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1). Besides, it’s recommended to set a line height of 1.5–2.0 times the font size to improve readability, especially for longer paragraphs.

Avoid overwhelming users with large blocks of text. Instead, organize information into smaller, digestible sections using headings, bullet points, or visual dividers. Ensure that text scaling remains consistent, as inappropriate scaling can disrupt the user experience. Prioritize high-contrast design to maintain visibility and accessibility, creating a seamless reading experience across devices.

Incorporation of balanced spacing, clean layouts, and a cohesive color scheme makes a website more appealing, which helps to capticate user attention and ensure a pleasant browsing experience that feels intuitive and engaging. That’s exactly what DashDevs team did for our customers, including MyUIDD and a global hospitality payment solutions. 

Bits of practical experience: When working on a website for the first Saudi Arabia neobank, we faced readability and standardization issues. To address them, we developed a UI kit, i.e., a set of components with defined colors, sizes, and shapes. By utilizing this UI kit across all website pages, we achieved optimal and uniform size for all typography and content and helped to build brand identity. 

You may request UI/UX design services for your mobile friendly website on the respective DashDevs service page. 

#8 Avoid Using Pop-Up Notifications

Pop-up notifications can significantly disrupt the mobile user experience, especially on smaller mobile screens, where they often block essential content. Instead of relying on intrusive pop-ups, it’s recommended to present information in less obtrusive ways, such as sidebars, banners, or inline messages within the page layout. These alternatives keep users engaged without interrupting their journey.

Bits of practical experience: Again, in the case of the first Saudi Arabia neobank, DashDevs team contributed to the website redesign significantly. As such, the first version of the website had lots of pop-ups, many of which we replaced with full-screen illustrations. As for pop-ups left, we utilized a delay in displaying pop-ups and ensured the appropriate pop-up size, which has had a positive impact on the customer experience. It also hasn’t compromised website performance, as this approach does not affect Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) or First Contentful Paint (FCP), which are content load and render times. 

Final Take

In today’s mobile-driven world, a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional — it’s essential. By implementing best front-end practices, such as responsive layouts, finger-friendly design, and optimized loading speeds, you can significantly enhance user experience and drive business growth. 

Here at DashDevs, with more than 14 years of experience, 500+ projects under our belt, and hundreds of mobile friendly websites delivered, we own the required expertise for website creation projects. Our development and design experts are ready, willing, and able to contribute to your best project. So don’t hesitate to reach out to us. 

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