5 Ways to Make Your Website Tablet-Friendly

You're seeing tablets more and more: on subways, in planes and in waiting rooms. To ensure you don't miss out during this cultural switch in reading habits, a number of publications have covered ways to ensure your site is tablet-friendly.

We've decided to highlight the tips provided by CIK Marketing, as they're practical and immediately useful. Here are five:

1. Avoid Flash. Adobe's Flash technology doesn't work on Apple mobile devices— and Flash tends to weigh sites down in any case. Substitute flash with HTML5 or JavaScript, which provide the same cool effects.
   
2. Ditch the drop-down menus. Instead, consider a showcase page for different sections of the site, better enabling tablet users to find all available subpages. If you want to keep your drop-down menus, create visual cues (like arrows) that show users the menu can be opened and expanded.
3. Design for touch interaction. Tablet users aren't clicking or scrolling with a mouse, so design buttons the size of a fingertip instead of a cursor. Links placed too closely together will also frustrate users; remember that touching and swiping are the gestures to design for these days.
4. Choose colors, textures and typography wisely. Bright background colors and patterns reduce the appearance of glare or smudges on an iPad or Blackberry Playbook. Avoid solid blacks that look like un-textured voids. Ensure your font isn't too large or too small for tablet navigation. When in doubt, test on a tablet or two.
5. Design forms to fit. Many company sites require users to fill out a form. Look yours over and ensure all fields are clear and easily accessible to tablet users. Avoid including too many fields, as longer forms on tablets are frustrating.

The Point: Think flat and touchy. The reading-and-browsing world is moving further in the direction of tablets, making it crucial that your site experience be as seamless there as it is anywhere else. A few tweaks could be all you need to ensure compatibility.

Source: MarketingProfs