Responsive Design: Being device inclusive

The trend started in early 2011, when PC sales dipped down after sale of smart phones shot up and crossed the PC sale numbers. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of mobile Internet users had grown by 45%.

As per another survey by GetResponse that was conducted between June 2012 and March 2013, emails opened in mobile increased by 30%.

What are the implications of this survey vis-à-vis responsive design?

The implications are very clear. If your website/emails are not compliant with a responsive design, they are less likely to be read; and also more likely to get trashed/bounced off.

A majority of global online users carry smart devices, including smart phones, tablets and I-pads. Most of these users are perpetually online, connected to the Internet and almost always available the moment mails and messages pop into their inbox. This means, it is easier for them to just switch on their hand-held devices and check the emails right there, instead of waiting to get onto their laptops or desktops.

Many companies these days are heavily into email marketing and newsletter distribution. Emails and Newsletters is a great way to keep the customers abreast of the latest updates from your industry. However, if your emails are not responsive, which means, if your emails are not mobile-friendly when viewed on mobile and other devices, you lose traffic from your website.

Users hardly go back to their opened emails. Once opened, emails remain read, unless very important. It becomes vital for you to make the email reading for your customers an easy experience on their mobiles.

Most newsletters and emails look great on the Web. However, when opened on phones, a lot of issues crop up, especially those related to layout, design and fonts.

The fact is that only 25% of digital marketers or companies opt for responsive design for their mobile devices. (Email Marketing Census 2013 – eConsultancy)

For example, a very popular product company had a big lead form popup window inserted on its home page for product enquiries. The same web page, when opened in a mobile, was not optimised to re-size the pop up window as per the mobile specifications. As a result, the user was stuck as the close button was outside the scrollable area. On the mobile screen, neither the complete form could be seen, nor the complete window. The only option was to close the browser and abandon going to the site again.

Such scenarios are real time scenarios that crop up when a website is not optimised for the mobile and other devices. The disadvantages of bad mobile design could be humongous, including higher bounce rate and loss of RoI. A bad user mobile experience is not a good sign for any company, be it an e-commerce store or a real estate company.

Decoding responsive mobile design

Responsive Design to cater to mobile users

Building a responsive mobile design is completely dependent on the following key aspects:

1. Maintain a simple design, no matter how flashy, engaging or wow your web email design is.
2. Keep it short and sweet – the KISS acronym applies here to the subject line, the actual email, and the format layout.
3. Be relevant and to the point. Remember that a trash button gets hit easier on mobile than on the computer monitor where there is a lot more space to entice your customer visually as well as with context.
4. Very practical design tips include increasing the line space, especially around clickable links to enable easy navigation. This also applies to button sizes. Consider the size of a finger that is going to click on the button. Design accordingly. Make sure your call to action is very clear in the final design.
5. Font sizes need to be determined as per target device platforms because different platforms respond differently to font sizes.
6. Keep reiterating your testing practices on different platforms to see the results, with focus on the loading time of emails and links within them.

Conclusion:

Mobile customers can turn into conversions on the go. Do not ignore them and ensure that your website is mobile friendly and also compatible with other devices.