An exercise in mobile-only design

This week I’ve been challenging the team to think mobile-ONLY as a design excercise.

We often have clients say they need mobile-first—only to supply us with mockups and examples for desktops. This happens all the time.

We all know that mobile has surpassed desktop in terms of ecommerce traffic (and sales, for many merchants!); but, the reality is, we still tend to think about design and usability in desktop terms.

Thinking about the ecommerce experience, storytelling, and customer-journey from a mobile-only perspective is fascinating and liberating. It causes us to rethink so many things we take for granted (that the navabar needs to be at the top, for example) or that products need to be in a grid.

It also makes us rethink how we lead visitors through a store and how much content we need.

I am a big believer in weaving storytelling throughout and taking visitors on a journey—but the risk when designing in a desktop paradigm is that we use too many words and images to tell really quite simple stories—because we have the screen real estate to do so.

Thinking mobile-only helps us think differently about how we tell a story or lead a visitor—as we have to be more economical and focused.

I’m loving the process and am excited to see what the team is coming up with.