A practical checklist for mobile-first design
Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Run through this the next time mobile-first design comes up.
The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.
The checklist
- More than half of most sites' traffic arrives on a phone
- Starting narrow forces you to decide what actually matters
- Desktop layouts are easier to add than to strip back
- Someone is named as the owner
- There is a date to review it again
Why it matters
More than half of most sites' traffic arrives on a phone. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.
What this looks like day to day
Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about mobile-first design before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Starting narrow forces you to decide what actually matters — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.