How to create a perfect website page for a tablet

According to Gartner, a research firm, sales of tablets are on the rise every week, and by 2016, flat sales will reach 665 million units worldwide. As the tablet-computer storm, which is represented by Apple's ipad, grows stronger, it is only a matter of time before mobile devices dominate the PC and become the preferred device for access to the network.

Adobe's latest digital marketing report shows that users who use tablets to browse the site are 20% more expensive per transaction than regular PC visitors. The data means that it is important for e-commerce companies to design a tablet-friendly website.

The ipad's emergence has revived the already dead tablet market, but for two years, many sites have not been optimized for tablets, and many of the new sites are not working properly on tablets. And this is not just those humble small sites, even the famous Google Docs user experience is also quite bad, do not believe in the ipad to try Google Docs, you will find in addition to browsing nothing, especially when you need to edit the document.

What's the problem?

We are familiar with details such as the devil, the details, the success or failure. In fact, the above problem is also very simple: some Web sites and clickable pictures is a little bit small. Jakob Nielsen, the world's leading expert on web usability, has pointed out the crux of the problem, particularly in the medium-sized tablets of the Kindle Fire. Web sites designed for 15-inch laptops or 22-inch monitors are not suitable for the ipad's 10-inch screen, and the entire screen will be too crowded and nowhere to go, and it's definitely not a pleasant experience for users to zoom in often by double-clicking.

The five major differences between tablet and notebook and desktop

In general, there are five major differences between designing a Web site for a tablet and a Web site suitable for desktops/notebooks:

Size

Tablets are generally small in size compared to laptops and desktops.

Screen resolution

The screen resolution of a tablet is very different (from the Kindle Fire 600x1024 to the next generation of Ipadd 2048x1536), and because the tablet's screen orientation can rotate, the tablet's web site needs to be viewed in both horizontal and vertical directions.

Compatibility

Anyone who has ever used a tablet knows that abobe flash is a big problem with tablet compatibility. But plug-ins like Silverlight, and some of the heavier JavaScript Web programs that compute tasks, can also cause trouble.

Touch interface

This is a big problem. The touch interface is the biggest difference between a Tablet PC and a traditional PC, requiring a larger clickable element and fewer navigation elements for easy user action.

Memory and CPU limits

We all know that the Tablet PC has entered the quad-core era, so the performance flaws of the flat panel are often easily overlooked. In fact, tablet memory and CPU performance is still far behind the traditional PC, so the multimedia elements of the site for the tablet is still a big challenge.

Understanding the User Experience

The most important point in designing a website is to understand the user experience and develop strategies to meet the needs of users, says Shawn Neumann, founder of Domain7, a website agency. Desktops are used for research and tasks, smartphones are used to temporarily pass the time, and tablets are used to enjoy time at home.

"Sometimes the response is most effective," Neumann suggested. Responsive web sites are mobile and can be adjusted to different screen sizes and display resolutions. So in theory, the same site can be viewed simultaneously on large and small screen devices, but the actual results are often unsatisfactory. How to overcome the problem of resolution change, the difficulty is not small, specially designed for large display site on the small screen display effect is often not good, so, a site is not universal.

How to solve this problem, we have opinions, there are suggestions to create a mobile-friendly web site, but also said that according to the user's use of the device to customize. The design of mobile-friendly web sites is difficult, especially to run a different content management system, in addition to maintaining both Web sites is not difficult and costly, and users on the tablet can not use the full version of the site will make them quite rub fire. In any case, whatever option is ultimately selected, additional development work and additional costs will be added.

Using tool software

Of course, sometimes you can take shortcuts: using software like pressly or Onswipe. Using this kind of software, the standard website page is like the magic, the page suitable for the flat screen will immediately appear in front of the user perfectly.

The above proposal is Onswipe's CEO and co-founder Jason Baptiste wants to see, he said:

"People will gradually from the" click Times "Into the" touch screen/Screen "era, flat Web site interface will be more focused, and require different design methods. Some people think that just by designing a site page and then using it everywhere, it can be once and for all, and I don't think it's tenable. On the tablet we have to focus on the touch, so the design should also be focused on the touch. ”

Web page for a flat panel

So what kind of Web page is suitable for a tablet computer? I think we need to do the following: Simple and clean user interface, coupled with large and conspicuous navigation and control elements, the space arrangement is reasonable, minimizing the use of interactive plug-ins, it is best to create a flexible, adaptable to a variety of screen size frame; Consider using a Third-party service to automatically convert a Web page to a tablet or other similar device.

In fact, the designer of the tablet computer website can learn more personalized content aggregation service such as Flipboard and pulse, they design the website page on the small device display effect is quite good, so can study them and draw lessons from their design method and style.

For the tablet to create the perfect site page of importance has been clear: either the site design more "flat", or wait for the loss of users, loss of income. Convert your Web site to a tablet friendly environment sooner than later, slow, and you will have a gap with your competitors. If you want to take advantage of the tablet computer storm and create a tablet-friendly website, do it! Web Designers!

Via VB

(Danice for Lei Feng Network, reproduced please specify!)