How to Improve Your Portable Sub-Score - Being Heardable

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Posted: 1/19/2010 in Heardable University

portability

Content portability has become the currency of successful online brands. A brand’s portability is a crucial sub-component of your overall Heardable Score.

The more mobile devices your site is optimized for, the better positioned your brand will be to capitalize on the emerging mobile market.

What it means to be Portable

A brand's portability is determined by detecting auto redirects for the four top mobile browsers; iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. A high Portable Sub-Score means your firm takes the mobile market seriously and doesn’t assume that everyone visiting your website is doing so from a home/work computer with a large monitor. We also look at whether your brand follows industry standards for mobile web design.

The total number of points a brand can earn for their Portable Sub-Score is 200. A high portable rating means you take the mobile market seriously and don’t assume everyone visiting your website is doing so from a mainframe computer.

Portable_Sub_Score

Tips for improving your Portable Sub-Score

The biggest barriers to mobile Internet browsing are:

Poorly formatted pages
Slow page load times
Difficult navigation

As a brand marketer, there are several strategic and tactical steps you can take to improve your Portable Sub-Score:

Make sure your website is optimized for iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile browsers
Consider optimizing your website for additional mobile browsers that your site visitors utilize most
Install a mobile browser redirect onto your site and all respective landing pages
Follow Tim Berners-Lee’s W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative standards
Design smaller, custom interfaces for mobile devices that include critical information & actions front and center
Make sure that all vital information is presented in columns that fit ‘within the fold’ – this is hugely important
Avoid nested tables, pop ups, frames, image maps, & graphics for spacing
Consider developing a mobile API so 3rd parties can build apps using your site content
Use an mobile emulator to see how your website looks on various mobile devices

Resources

Photoshop PSD file containing iPhone UI templates for mock-up designs, by teehan+lax
iPhone design insights & video by Edward Tufte
Small Surfaces blog about design for mobile technology
Punchcut mobile design agency
Creative-Spark mobile design agency