How mobile readers digest: What’s the key to a great mobile site design?

You’re building a website and it’s all going swimmingly. Oh, bollocks: mobile. People need to read it on mobile devices. You’ve gone about this all wrong. You need to start at the bottom and work your way up. But you also need to remember that mobile users absorb content differently. But what do they want? Read on to find out…

Poynter’s carried out eye-tracking tests to see what setups and ways of doing things readers prefer on mobile devices. The results aren’t exactly a complete guide to building a mobile site, but there are some decent insights.

For one, a huge 70 per cent of readers in the research prefer to read with their phone or tablet in the landscape orientation. But that’s for actual article reading. What about article choosing?

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Poynter’s research says that the majority of people much prefer a carousel of content to swipe through, because it lets them choose which is the most important piece to them. That’s opposed to a traditional layout with a hierarchy chosen by the editor.

For the rest of Poynter’s findings, all laid out in a lovely infographic, head over to AdWeek.

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