Over the past couple of years, a great number of us have made the move to smart phones, myself included. Whilst I’d always thought it was cool to have all this ‘power’ at my fingertips, I’d never really considered it necessary. I mean I spend most of my day in front of a computer so I was generally not in a position to need a phone beeping my emails at me as well…

Now we’re here in 2012 – smartphones are cheaper than ever and just about every mobile contract includes an internet allowance, and Google has recently released a post which described a big surge in smartphone ownership, with the UK leading the way, it describes how as of Oct 2011, nearly 45% of the UK population now own a smartphone – that’s a fairly staggering amount, considering their survey at the beginning of 2011 found the figure to be 30%.

So I’ve helped towards that 15% rise, as towards the end of 2011, I’ve made the switch myself – I now own my very own android smartphone. The “always-connected” world is an addictive one, and also at times quite useful – not only to me but to an ever-growing number. So what’s fuelling demand?

Relevant Services, Adapted Content

A year or two ago, I wouldn’t have been able to access my online banking using my phone, or at least certainly not with ease. This has now changed and just about every major bank has a mobile version of their online banking system. This is one factor behind the increases; so many relevant services have now made their content mobile friendly, you really can achieve useful stuff on the mobile web without endless amounts of scrolling and zooming.

Act Now

Now onto the point – if you’re a business and you have a website, if it’s not mobile friendly it needs to be now. Stats have recently shown that nearly 75% of smartphone owners use their phones to access the internet, and these numbers still increasing. Combine that with the 45% ownership rate mentioned earlier, and you can see why companies are sitting up and taking notice.

If you’re into social media, it’s even more important to have a mobile optimised site. Only too often do I see people using Facebook on their phones, only to click through to a website which is not optimized for smaller screens which leads them simply not to bother engaging in the content.

Is this going to cost tons of cash?

Well, hopefully not. The styling side of it can be quite simple, but really it’s a very individual thing depending on the layout and complexity of you site. For example, if you’ve got a website which appears as two columns on a ‘standard’ desktop computer, it may only take a small amount of rearranging to display it as a single column for devices with a smaller screen (i.e. mobiles). It’s an investment, and a worthwhile one at that – you’ll be making your website much more accessible to the fastest growing audience there is.

Conclusions

If you’re creating a new website of any kind, accommodating mobile devices should be a key part of your thinking and planning behind the site. It’s no longer optional. Your website should display differently depending on the size of screen, and type of device that your visitor is using (this is generally known as responsive design).

Designing for mobile is an exciting challenge. The smaller screen size comes much more limited space to display your content, so you really have to consider which features/elements of your site are the most important to your users (or those you most want seen).