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by copergi 4433 days ago
I love that those of us who give a shit about the users can use the mobile trend to push good user-centric design on otherwise unwilling marketing weasels. I just wish they would stop pretending it is in any way unique to mobile users. Almost all that stuff is just ordinary "give the user a site that doesn't suck", and applies to any user, regardless of the device they are using at any particular moment. "Make your menu simple" and "give relevant search results" and "don't put up registration walls to prevent your users from giving you money" have been well known for over a decade. Take this opportunity to push good web design for your entire site, not just for mobile users.
1 comments
dredmorbius 4433 days ago
Most of it reads as Jacob Nielsen 1998. You're quite right.

One of the things I actually like about mobile websites (done right) is that they make for better desktop websites: they take away all of the cruft far too typical of the latter and get straight to business.

Someone should make a point of taking mobile redesign as a launching point for desktop redesign.

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camus2 4433 days ago
That's what the mobile first approach is about.Get rid of the fat and focus on what matters.

It doesnt always work though,sometime user facing sites have complex requirements that just dont make sense on mobile,you often need 2 versions with a complete different UI.

Yet i dont believe in a high rate conversion on mobile web(phones). native apps often work better when it comes to ad or even ecommerce. Especially when "in app" purchase is just one click ahead.

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dredmorbius 4432 days ago
I realize you can't get rid of everything (and sometimes mobile sites cut too much), but there's very few sites which can't go on some diet.

I've written CSS rules to modify over 1000 sites in the past year, and while the modifications are often minor, the busier the site, the more likely I'll simply strip out elements -- asides, headers, and footers are very likely to get killed, leaving more space and prominence for primary content.

Yes, I could use Pocket or Readability, but they work an article at a time. This fixes the site for good.

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