How to Create an Interactive Website with WordPress and Bootstrap
Many businesses are realizing the value of creating an interactive website, which is a website that can be both accessed via a web browser as well as utilized via an application, such as Apple’s iOs or Google’s Android platform. You may be familiar with websites like YouTube and Netflix, which provide videos that can be streamed via an app.
The advantage of creating a website for an iOS or Android device is that it can be accessed quickly and easily, regardless of where you are. With a desktop computer, you have to log in to the website first, or open the application and navigate there. This can be cumbersome if you’re accessing the site from a different location or device altogether. In addition, if you’re creating multimedia content (i.e. videos or interactive elements), it’s much easier to do so on a mobile device.
The Basics of Mobile Website Design
When designing a mobile website, you have to take into consideration a number of factors, including but not limited to the following:
- Layout
- Navigation
- Colors
- Typography
- Images
- Buttons
- Text alignment
- Accessibility
- Weight
- Speed
The layout of your mobile website will determine how everything from the overall page size and content to the individual components (e.g. headlines, photo galleries, etc.) appear on the screen. The following are some general guidelines for creating a mobile-friendly website.
Thin As A Luxury
Although you don’t need to be as skinny as a model to create a mobile-friendly website, you do need to pay attention to how much screen real estate you’re using. Thin mobile websites are popular because they utilize less space than their thick counterparts, allowing more content to be displayed on the screen. However, if the content on your website is important, you might want to avoid creating a thin website for the sake of having a larger screen real estate. If you have a look at the Wikipedia article on responsive web design, you’ll see that it responds to the screen size of the device it’s displayed on. This means that regardless of whether it’s a tablet or a notebook computer, the layout of the website will adjust itself so that it fits the screen size. To create a mobile-friendly website, start by checking out the mobile version of your website using Google’s free tool, Google Mobile Site Verifier. This will give you an idea of how well your website is designed for mobile users and whether or not you have to make any adjustments. Thin as a luxury means taking the time to make your website accessible and usable via mobile devices. For example, if you’re using a smaller font, making it easier for users to read the text on their phone. This will make your website more accessible to those using mobile devices and also provide a better user experience.
Accessible
A lot of the population now uses screen readers and other text-to-speech software, so you can’t just focus on how your website looks. You also have to make sure that it’s accessible to those who want to access it via a screen reader or other software.
Luckily, there’s a tool created just for testing and debugging websites accessible to the screen reader user. This tool, JAWS, simulates the visual appearance of a screen reader over a web page. This means you can use it to test out your website, seeing how it looks and whether or not it’s accessible to those with limited sight. If you’re interested in creating a mobile-friendly website, start by checking out the JAWS license to see if it’s free for personal use. If it is, then you can use it to test out your website, making any necessary adjustments.
Speed
On a mobile device, even the faintest ping can be annoying. This is why you have to be careful about how much content you have on a website and design your site in a way that loads quickly and without errors. To do this, use a tool like Google’s Page Speed Insights. This will give you an idea of the overall performance of your website, as well as any necessary adjustments you need to make so that it loads faster. Some website performance tips include:
- Reduce the size of your website’s text files
- Minimize the use of image sprites
- Avoid popups
- Avoid using embedded scripts
- Avoid using collections of large images
- Use condensed fonts and short links
- Leverage browser caching
- Minimize repetitive redirects
- Minimize references to external sites
These tips can help improve the speed of your site, making it easier for your visitors to navigate and enjoying a better user experience. To create a mobile-friendly website, start by checking out Google’s Page Speed Insights, which is a free service. You can use it to identify websites that perform well and use that information to guide your designs.
Buttons
On a desktop computer or laptop, you have space to click and navigate to other pages, so there’s no real need for buttons on a website. But on a mobile device, this is quite the opposite. There, you have little real estate, so you have to utilize the available space as best you can, and buttons are one of the best tools for doing so.
When someone clicks a button on a mobile device, usually they expect to be directed to a new page. But sometimes, they want to stay on the same page, either because they’re on a form (i.e. contact form for sales) and don’t want to leave it or because the page they’re on contains some sensitive information (i.e. social security number or credit card information).
If this is the case for your website, then you need to use a tool like Google’s Material Design, which gives you the ability to display a button that doesn’t directly take the user to a new page, but instead does something on the current page. You can learn more about material design buttons here.
Color Palette
On a mobile device, white is often associated with blasting beaches, snowflakes, and the innocence of spring. Black, on the other hand, is often associated with bad weather, oil, and money.
This, of course, is an oversimplification, but it’s true that colour has connotations that are either good or bad, depending on whether or not you want your visitors to relate to the colors you’re using.
If you’re using white often on your website (especially on the exterior), your visitors will associate it with cleanliness, new startups, and good luck. If you use black often, then you’re guaranteed to attract visitors with your dark side (and maybe even lead them to your website too often!).