Mobile First Web Design: What and Why

Posted by Pavithra on November 13th, 2018

Mobile-first web design is an approach in responsive web design and it’s pretty much self-explanatory. This approach has its roots in progressive enhancement ideology in development and it recommends designing a website for mobile first and enhancing the website gradually for the larger screens.

Generally, web designers design a website for the larger screens first and make it suitable for the mobile phones later. This kind of approach is known as desktop-first approach or graceful degradation. This was the traditional approach and it is not good for providing the best experience for mobile users.

Many designers are not aware of the performance issues related with the desktop approach. Sometimes, the website owners would insist to design the mobile version first. Venkat, senior developer at Spidergems, tells that web designers are forced to design for the desktop first because that is how the clients want.  

Whatever be the reason, the designing for the desktop first comes with several problems.

Increasing Number of Mobile Users

In the old days, people rarely used mobile phones to access the website. So, it made perfect sense to design a website for the larger screens first

However, the scenario has changed now. According to several statistics, the number of mobile phones accessing a website has surpassed the number of desktops. Google recently revealed that the searches from mobile phones outnumbered the searches from desktops.

When the majority of internet users use mobile phones now, we should think about changing our age old practices. Now we need to design our website primarily for the mobile phones.

Better User-Experience for Mobile Users

When we design a website for desktop first and then make it responsive for the smaller screens, the performance of the website on the mobile will not be perfect. In this case, every bit code for the desktop will be loaded on mobile and then load the code the mobile phones. So, there will be lots of unwanted codes and files being downloaded to the mobile users which they never need.

It’s unacceptable to force the mobile users download unwanted scripts and files if you want to give the best experience for your web designers.

Content Friendly

When we follow the mobile first approach, we have to give primary focus to the content and its presentation rather than the fancy design of the website. This also helps us to provide the best experience for our visitors.

Ensure Maximum Accessibility

Ensuring the maximum accessibility is also one of the major reasons why you should follow mobile-first or progressive enhancement approach.

When you design a website for a device with least features and functionalities, you can be sure that your website will work on all devices.

On the other hand, if you design your website for the larger devices and latest browsers, it may not work the way you expected on older and smaller devices with limited features. This creates accessibility issues. Your website will work the way you expect for some users but not for all.

When you follow the progressive enhance method strategy, at least the basic version of your website will work the way you expect in most devices and browsers.