Mobile First

by Luke Wroblewski - October 2011 (A Book Apart)

Mobile First is a short but information-packed book that makes the case for why Web sites and applications should increasingly be designed for mobile first and outlines how Web design teams can make the transition from designing for desktops/laptops to designing for mobile by specifying unique design considerations for mobile Web organization, actions, input, and layout.

For years, most Web teams have designed products and information for the desktop/laptop PC. For these teams, mobile (if it even happened) was a barebones port of the desktop version. Sadly, this approach actually made sense for a while. Browsing the Web on mobile phones was painful; carriers controlled access to the Web on their devices; and mobile network speeds often made everything grind to a halt. So few people used the Web on mobiles and those that did were frequently faced with an unpleasant experience.

But things have changed so dramatically over the past few years that starting with the desktop may be an increasingly backwards way of thinking about a Web product. Designing for mobile first not only prepares you for the explosive growth and opportunities in this space, it forces you to focus and enables you to innovate.

Testimonials

"By coupling insightful design patterns to common-sense principles, Luke's Mobile First is the beginning of a quiet revolution, its title the rallying cry that should be on the lips of every web designer." Ethan Marcotte Author, Responsive Web Design "Every information architect and experience designer should read this book. It will change the way you work today and how you think about tomorrow. I devoured my copy in less than three hours. Not a second of that time was wasted." Peter Morville Author, Search Patterns & Ambient Findability "Luke doesn't just rely on his wondrous wit and marvelous writing style to make an overwhelmingly convincing argument for designing the mobile experience first; he also hammers home all of his points with oodles and oodles of scrumptious data." Jeremy Keith Author, HTML5 for Web Designers "This is the update to Mobile Web Design I wish I'd written. It's a concise opus filled to the brim with great examples of mobile design, supported by sound advice, research, and tips from Mr. W himself." Cameron Moll Founder, Authentic Jobs "Packed with incredibly valuable - and sometimes surprising - information that will help you better understand the mobile landscape and better sell its promise to your clients." Aaron Gustafson Author, Adaptive Web Design "Mobile First succeeds brilliantly at fulfilling its goal of arming you with the information you need quickly so you can get back to work. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not adding it to your library." Tim Kadlec Breaking Development "First came HTML5 & CSS3, then came Responsive Design, and now we have Mobile First. Welcome to the new way things are done on the web." Matthew Carleton, Designers Blueprint "Mobile First is much more than I’d anticipated, covering an entire philosophy of web design. You should read this book. It’s excellent." Ian Yates, Wedbdesign Tuts+ "This book isn't just an approach or strategy for designing for mobile platforms first, it's a mindset, a philosophy and a must for evolving User Interaction design." Marwan Salfiti, BrandWell Creative "Luke really practices what he preaches. He has fitted so much that is currently so very relevant into such a small package." David Simpson, AppFusions

Buy the Book

Paperback or digital formats (Kindle, PDF, ePub, mobi) from A Book Apart

More by Luke Wroblewski

Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks
Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing), and any task requiring information entry.

Site Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability
When users interact with your site, they are relying on the visual presentation to tell them what the site has to offer and how they can make use of it.