
Mobile first
Cisco has projected that mobile connections will increase from 6billion today to 12billion in 2016 – just four years away. It’s not hard to grasp the importance of providing users with a solid mobile experience. So why is Mobile First so difficult to sell?1. Change is hard
Over the past 20 years web design has evolved from text-based sites, through Flash, CSS, and into Web 2.0. Through the years web design has taken a lot of cues from print design, and yet it still took 20 years with designers having to relearn some fundamental lessons. To look at one example, in the 1950s the International Style was created for print, pushing back on the overuse of ornamentation and decoration. This bears a striking resemblance to the lesson designers learned in the late-2000s, when sites went from Flash-heavy to clean and simple.
2. Mobile is Expensive
In addition to change itself being difficult to grasp, adding mobile designers and developers can be pricy. Basic supply and demand explains part of the reason mobile designers and developers are as expensive as they are, but there’s an added challenge. Mobile development takes vastly more time than web, and mobile devices are also more resource-constrained; they have less memory and slower processors than computers. Designers need to be aware of how their designs impact development and consider how the developers will optimize for performance. All of that costs time, and time is money. Mobile First is all well and good, but many companies make it second – or third – when the money isn’t there to support it.3. What’s the Process?
As if pricing concerns weren’t enough, there’s the fact that Mobile First means different things to different people. For a manager, it means setting aside time for developers and designers to create wireframes and mockups for mobile in addition to web. For a front-end developer, it means considering responsive design or progressive enhancement options. But for the content creators, be they content strategists or designers, there’s another consideration – how do you decide what content belongs on mobile? Few designers have a clear answer to the question, which is the biggest reason that Mobile First is difficult to implement, even by companies that have accepted the need to innovate and have the money to do so. But the answer to how to create content is not apparent in the underlying principles of Mobile First. That’s why there’s a new maxim in town: Content First.Content First
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” – Jeffrey Zeldman Mobile First doesn’t mean anything to designers and content strategists without some details or tools. In order to design with mobile in mind, there must be something to say – to quote Margot Bloomstein, “What do you need to communicate? Why even do this…if you don’t know what you need to communicate?”
AIDA
One tool for simplifying the story is a simple acrostic: AIDA. Neville Medhora promotes AIDA in his Kopywriting Kourse, and gives several examples of how it can be used to create content with any (or several) media in mind. The four words represented by AIDA are: A – Attention I – Interest D – Desire A – Action There are four steps corresponding to AIDA. The first, Attention refers to whatever first grabs the user's attention. It could be a word, image, headline, or graphic. It usually takes less than a second to sink in, and it might shock, amaze, or amuse the audience. The second, Interest is the element on the page (or tweet, or paragraph) that interests the user in continuing to read. This could be a title or subtitle, it might be the first sentence of a story, or it might be the caption on an image. Third comes the Desire, whether through a video or a bulleted list sharing details and increasing the user’s connection to the content. And last is Action, the button, link, or instruction that tells the user what to do next. By creating content that follows the AIDA needs, it becomes easier to tell a story in multiple mediums; after all, it’s easier to alter the story if you’re very clear on what it is, and how each piece connects to the user’s attention, interest, desire, and action.
File Sharing
Time is money, as we said, and managers everywhere are interested in working more efficiently. Sadly, there is a fallacy that people work better in silos, probably due to the fact that no one wants someone looking over their shoulder as they write or design. As a result, content strategists and designers who need to work collaboratively, struggle to find a method that works. File sharing has made collaborating far easier. With tools such as Dropbox or Google Docs, writers can provide copy at the same time that designers are working on screens. A 15-minute in-person check in, much like an agile scrum, can also go a long way to aiding collaboration. When a writer knows that he can create a first draft of copy and see how it looks within an hour or two it becomes much easier to write, and when a designer knows that copy is coming and designs can be tweaked to fit, getting started is less of a chore.Kick-Off Meetings
Somewhere along the way, meetings got a very bad rap in the world of design. And yet sometimes, getting the full team together to discuss every idea is the only way to kick-off. Ideally, a kick-off meeting is an opportunity for designers, developers, stakeholders, and content creators to sit together and listen to one another. Many project leads are afraid of inviting conflict, but content creators tend to prefer to hear the conflict come out at the beginning, rather than late in the game when designs and content will all need to be redone. More importantly, meetings are the place to prioritize features and functionality. This can also cause conflict, but if the whole team is genuinely interested in coming to an agreement on the project goals, then the conflict can be a positive and necessary thing. In addition, the more the content strategists and designers can learn about the team’s priorities, the easier it will be to create adaptive content that achieves these goals for both mobile and web.Learn Your Audience
Do your users have Android phones? iPhones? Do they download many apps? Are they comfortable entering credit cards on their mobile phones? Do they read on their phones? Do they use tablets? Do they watch movies on their laptops? Given the expense of adding a mobile developer to the team, it’s astonishing that more companies don’t consider their mobile needs before engaging in a mobile strategy. If the users aren’t interested in having a mobile component, then perhaps the mobile goals need to change. And the prevalence of online forums, online testing sites, and of course Facebook and Twitter leaves no excuse for not seeking out your users and discovering what they use and how they use it.Mobile First, User First, Content First
Mobile First and Content First are not principles in opposition. Far from it; Mobile First is a goal for designers and developers, and Content First is a tool to help achieve that goal. Sadly, it’s easy to let the barriers to Mobile First prevent your team from moving forward, but embracing Content First and the available tools to get there can get your design team ahead of the curve.Marli Mesibov
Marli Mesibov provides clients with a combination of content strategy and project management at a UX Design agency, Above the Fold. She is an active contributor to ATF’s blog, in addition to writing short stories in her spare time. Marli can also be found on Twitter, where she shares thoughts on UX Design, content strategy, and Muppets.
Read Next
24 Best Creative Portfolio Websites in 2023
For anyone working in a digital creative field, whether design, illustration, animation, video, or a combination of…
By Simon Sterne
15 Best New Fonts, September 2023
Nothing upgrades your designs like selecting the right font. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of using the same…
By Ben Moss
Weekly Design News #1
Every Sunday we’re rounding up the best of the previous week’s stories from webdesignernews.com, and in this issue #1,…
By Louise North
The 20 Most Controversial Logos of All Time (Ranked)
When you hire graphic designers to create your company's logo, what do you expect? Professional designs, culturally…
By Robert Reeve
LimeWire AI Studio Generative Art App
If you’re looking for the most exciting way to launch a career in AI-generated art, then you’re in the right place.
By WDD Staff
20 Best New Websites, September 2023
Are you in need of design inspiration? Are you looking for the best websites designed in 2023 to pull ideas,…
The Dangers of Deceptive Design Patterns (And How to Avoid Them)
As web designers, our role in crafting user-friendly digital landscapes is critical. We are tasked with creating user…
By Louise North
10 Best Ecommerce WordPress Themes in 2023 [September update]
You plan to set up shop with an online store. You know there’ll be competition. And to compete with or beat that…
By WDD Staff
5 Marketing Tools Every Designer Needs
Yes, designers do need marketing tools. From freelance graphic designers who need to land more work to designers who…
Exciting New Tools For Designers, September 2023
At the end of another summer, we are all getting ready to knuckle down for some serious work in the fall. But we want…
Elon Musk calls LinkedIn ‘Cringe’—Announces Competitor
Elon Musk recently announced his intentions to create a direct competitor to LinkedIn. Musk’s grand plan is to make his…
Everything You Need to Know to Embrace the Y2K Design Trend
The turn of the millennium was a major cultural shift, and the Y2K aesthetic emerged as a visualization of what the…
By Simon Sterne