What Makes These Mobile Sites UX Winners?

What makes a great mobile website experience? In preparation for a presentation at eTourism Summit 2015, we asked Destination Analysts to conduct a consumer audit. Mobile sites volunteered by eTourism Summit attendees were analyzed by the consumer panel tasked with identifying the best user experiences based on: 

• First Impressions: The X factor (the look and feel).
• Inspiration: Find reason(s) to visit the destination (assessment of content).
• Usability: Select a travel planning task (i.e. attending an event, finding a hotel) and attempt to complete it (assessment of usability).

The consumer test panel summarized their selections of a winning destination and an attraction.

Q:  “What do consumers look for in a great mobile experience?”

A:  “Clean design, not too much text on the pages, and really cool photos.”

Winners of eTS15 Mobile UX

DMOs: Kudos to @travelportland on having the best destination mobile website experience.

Attractions: Kudos to @CityPASS for the perfect amount of information on their mobile website.

Recap of Key Takeaways from eTS15

1. Smartphone IS the main screen. 62 percent of searches for destinations and attractions are on mobile.
2. “Desktop is useless. Be where your users are.” – Shaun Aukland, Google.
3. Speed matters. Test your site at www.webpagetest.org because 40 percent will abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load and 47 percent expect it in 2 seconds or faster.
4. Hi res images, double the resolution of a desktop, are essential for retina-quality screens.

From the Developer Who Coined RWD

Responsive web design was originally defined by web designer Ethan Marcotte in A List Apart. That was in 2010. Halfway through 2015, Marcotte said, “The web hasn’t merely moved beyond the desktop in recent years; the web has vaulted right over the desktop.” Conclusion: we’re not designing for pages anymore. Instead of building and thinking in columns and rows, we must “embrace patterns: small components that can adapt independently of any interface, and that we can stitch together to create more complex responsive layouts.”