{"id":12255,"date":"2021-07-20T08:21:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T15:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/?p=12255"},"modified":"2023-09-28T01:03:24","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T08:03:24","slug":"what-is-mobile-first-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/design\/what-is-mobile-first-design\/","title":{"rendered":"UX Design: What Is Mobile-First Design and Why Should You Learn It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thanks to the digital transformation, the whole world\u2014businesses and consumers alike\u2014is now online. This means that more than half of the global population is connected to the internet, with an astonishing 93% accessing the web via mobile devices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200c<\/strong>Mobile devices are now the device of choice for accessing the internet, as they are accessible, cheaper than computers, and easy to use. The importance of designing websites properly for mobile users cannot be overstated, and this is where mobile-first design comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200cWhat Is Mobile-First Design?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u200cMobile-first design can be defined as designing a product for mobile users before expanding to a design for tablet and desktop users. This implies that a designer would begin the design process by prototyping how the product would look on a mobile device and then adding additional elements as the screens get bigger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200c<\/strong>This kind of design hasn’t always been the norm. In the past, websites were first designed for desktops, then elements were either taken away or sized down as screen sizes reduced. This was first known as the graceful degradation philosophy before later morphing into responsive web design.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200c<\/strong>The term mobile-first first came onto the scene in 2010, thanks to the then CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt<\/a>. During a conference, Schmidt predicted that mobile would soon be the most popular way to provide many services to consumers, and hence the best way to get mobile architecture right was to go mobile-first. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200c<\/strong>If current statistics are anything to go by, he couldn’t have been more right. The use of mobile phones has been on a steady rise over the last five years\u2014concurrent with the slow decline of desktop use\u2014allowing the mobile-first design to take center stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u200c<\/strong>A mobile-first strategy means focusing your attention on where most of your product’s users are, along with what will potentially be your most significant profits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200c3 Reasons Why Mobile-First Design Is Important <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u200cAs the majority of the internet is accessed from mobile devices, it only makes sense to focus most of the attention on designing for that market. Mobile-friendly websites have never been in higher demand, so it\u2019s prime time to learn and incorporate the strategy into your designs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n