Designing a Mobile Friendly Website

Course Description

This is an introductory overview of the mobile web user experience, including the design and evaluation of mobile interfaces.  A case study from a government client will be woven into the discussion, and Cory will describe how issues were resolved when the client decided to “go mobile” with an alternative version of their site.

Cory will provide a look at mobile site examples and facilitate discussion to assess whether the companies did a good job at creating a usable mobile experience.

You will individually and as a group sketch out how a mobile site might be organized and how a few sample pages might look.

Additionally, Cory will choose one or two non-mobile websites from attendees, and everyone will discuss how that site could be turned into a mobile site, which audience groups should be targeted, and how the usability of these mobile sites could be assessed once they are created.

What You'll Learn

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Discuss mobile penetration in the marketplace and be better able to assess whether you should be creating a mobile version of your existing sites
• Create a business case for why an alternative mobile site will enhance the user experience of mobile web surfers
• Explain why the decision was made to create a mobile site, and for which audience groups (based on in-class discussions of a number of examples of standard web pages that went mobile)
• Organize, prioritize, and sketch out a basic mobile site
• Understand how research can be used to evaluate mobile sites before and after the sites go live

Who Should Attend

Government web managers and anyone responsible for the creation of a mobile version of an existing government site. The course will not be too technical and will be suitable for those in both technical and non-technical positions.

About the Instructor

Cory Lebson is the owner of Lebsontech LLC, a user-research company, and has worked on numerous usability projects for government, non-profit, e-commerce, and educational organizations since 1995. He has been involved in mobile design and evaluation since 2000, including work for government and medical institutions, as well as for a mobile service provider.

Cory has been speaking about usability and technology for the past 15 years and conducts regular training seminars in mobile design as well as usability, accessibility, information architecture, search engine optimization, and web analytics. He is the president of the Usability Professionals Association DC chapter and has an MBA focusing in marketing and technology management, as well as an MA in sociology and a BS in psychology.