First, if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website – by that I mean that your website uses responsive design to adapt to any device – you’re 2016 budget must include this important redesign for your website and/or blogs. There are so many reasons why you need to make this update, but in a nutshell, it’s what your members want and expect. Have you checked your mobile usage in your website analytics lately?
If you do have a mobile-friendly or responsive website, or are planning to implement one soon, keep in mind some key best practices to make sure your users are getting the optimal experience they’ve come to expect.
1. Get rid of mobile-only websites
There was a time when companies addressed the needs of their mobile audience by making completely separate websites specifically for mobile devices. However, those websites often lack content and branding that the “regular” desktop site has. In fact, it’s usually just a portion of the full site. As such, you are not delivering the same user experience across devices. You’re instead delivering a choppy, confusing and often difficult experience for the user. Not to mention, there is a time and resource cost for maintaining two (or more) versions of your website.
2. Design for your members
Responsive websites are programmed to adapt to any device. Content blocks, navigation, etc. transform depending on the device you are on. One of the most important factors of responsive website design is deciding on how those things transform to best suit your users for different screen sizes.
Fortunately, the answers are right at your fingertips. Use your member data – from website analytics to CRM data. By seeing what your users are already doing on your website and what they are looking for from your credit union, you can easily make the right decisions on what stays in the site header or top navigation, what moves to the bottom of the pages, what should be most prominent for different size screens, etc. All of those important decisions make the user experience from device to device logical and seamless.
3. Optimize your content
Making sure your content is easily accessed is only the beginning. It’s just as important to make sure your content is easily digested. It’s even more important in responsive design – a few scrolls on the desktop equates to quite a few more scrolls on mobile. Here are just some guidelines that will help ensure your audience can easily digest your website content whether at their computer, on their tablet or on their phone.
- Make sure each page has one clearly defined audience, purpose and call-to-action.
- Chunk content with descriptive headings and subheadings.
- Keep paragraphs to no more than five lines (on desktop screens) and vary the length of paragraphs on the page.
- Use short, concise sentences.
- Use bullets and numbered lists to organize and call attention to information.
- Consider multiple pages for a multi-step process like online applications.
- Create actionable link text like “download the brochure” or “apply now,” instead of “click here.” The link text should tell users exactly where they will be taken when they click on that link. Do not use full URLs as link text within content.
- Use clear visuals, like videos and infographics, to help explain processes and concepts.
- Step out of the weeds and take a fresh look from your members’ or users’ perspective. Does it make sense to you? Do you know what to do next and where it will take you? Do you quickly and easily understand the point that’s trying to be made?
4. Train your website editors
Finally, one of the most important steps in this process is to train your website editors on responsive design best practices. Although, much of the tricky responsive programming should be dictated by site wide templates and styles, there are going to be things that need to be considered at the content level. This includes tables, images, embedding video and more. Make sure your staff has the tools and resources to maintain your now mobile-friendly site and test, test, test. What looks good on your desktop may not work on your tablet or phone if it’s not programmed correctly for responsive website design.
Article published in the September-October 2015 issue of The Federal Credit Union magazine from NAFCU.
