Should your site have a specific view for Mobile?
Without a doubt, UI/UX is the first thing to impress the new users before they can be impressed by functionality. As a Site Owner, we know that you have to consider the display of every block on all pages on the different views. Also, the user experience consistency is very important whereas your users should have the same experience on all devices. In this topic, we will discuss few rules of thumb in design adapting with the business of your sites, in order to keep your user experience consistency:
- Responsive Design, should all blocks display the same on all views (Desktop, Tablet, Phone)?
- Pagination vs Load More
You might already be familiar with Responsive Design, especially when phpFox supports responsive Bootstrap framework by default https://www.phpfox.com/blog/2015/phpfox-v4-1-0-released/; your phpFox site already has a specific view for Mobiles (Tablet and Phone). Of course that you can have Mobile App specified for your users but it is very costly and hard to determine what the users really need on mobile from the beginning.
Moreover, not all the functions working on Desktop view are suitable for Mobile users due to different purposes of devices. Mobile is a data-consuming device, where itʼs used to view, interact with existing information. Of course that you can post a photo, simple blog; but not really suitable to create complex content such as Business Profile, product description, … With feedback from our users as well as our observing many websites, we found out many blocks are better not to display on Mobile. Therefore we will add this option into default basic blocks, and so admins can configure on their owns.
Also, any 3rd party developers should follow this rule and inherit the setting. Ex: few blocks on an event, etc. will not display. So if your site is for simple content posts such as photo, music, blog, the creation blocks should be displayed on Mobile Devices. However, if your sites are Business Orientated such as Listing, Business Directory, Job Posting, you have to choose carefully which ones to display.
This feature will be available in phpFox 4.6.0, and so will the following feature …
Scrolling Or Pagination? Whatʼs your choice?
Why Pagination and Scrolling related to Responsive Design? The link is quite loosely, but for those who have been using Facebook or Pinterest app in mobile, the experience should be the same with mobile when accessing the activity feed, why? Simple reason: users keep scrolling to read activity feeds – important action – no matter what devices they are using. Simple rule: scroll is good for mobile devices, users prefer to scroll than to click on a touch screen.
Pros and Cons of Scrolling and Pagination are quite easily to find out, many articles out there discussing on this. Here is an example for your quick reference: UX: Infinite Scrolling vs. Pagination
Yet to balance and overcome “Cons” when using Scrolling:
- Either make the footer accessible by making it sticky or relocate the links to a top or side bar.
- “Load More” button when reaching the maximum number of autoloading
For your reference, we quote here the part indicating when you should use Infinite Scrolling or Pagination?
“There are only a few instances where infinite scrolling is effective. Itʼs best suited for sites and apps that boast user-generated content (Twitter, Facebook) or visual content (Pinterest, Instagram). Pagination, on the other hand, is a safe option, and good solution for sites and apps that intend to satisfy the goal-oriented activities of the users.”
In response to this urgent call, phpFox will introduce options for you to choose in 4.6.0:
- Scrolling auto loading with number of “Read More”
- Pagination for site wide
So, it will be definitely easy for you to choose whatʼs suitable for you.
To be continued … so stay tuned for more update on phpFox 4.6.0.