Nobody looks at your site on a computer.

Let's not kid ourselves. Almost nobody boots up a computer to visit a site anymore. You pull out your phone, you type, you look, you put it away. That's it.

You don't have to take my word for it. Open your Google Analytics, the numbers are undeniable. And if you have no way to measure at all, that's another problem: building a site without a dashboard is shooting blindfolded.

Mobile is almost all of your traffic

Worldwide, nearly six out of ten visitors browse from a phone (source: StatCounter). And for a restaurant, a club or a neighborhood business, that number often climbs to eight or nine out of ten. Whatever your niche, that's where your customers are.

So when someone shows you your future site on a big computer screen, that's a red flag. Personally, I don't care what it looks like on a desktop. I want to know what it looks like in a hand, on a small screen. I design in that order, never the other way around.

And small screen means really small. Not everyone has the latest iPhone. Plenty of people still carry an old, narrow model. If your site breaks on those screens, it's useless, and you're throwing away eight or nine visitors out of ten. You might as well close up shop.

Navigation you understand without thinking

It all starts with one thing: can someone understand, in three seconds, what you do and where to click? On a phone, there's no room for hesitation.

So keep navigation simple. No nested menus, no sub-sub-sections, no maze. Get to the point. The hard part isn't making it pretty, it's making your business clear at a glance. That's where the real user experience is won.

Remember one thing: a person who has to think to use your site leaves. A button should look like a button, an arrow should be visible, colors should guide. We all know how to spot a button. This isn't the moment to reinvent the wheel.

Short text, or nobody reads it

A wall of text on a phone, nobody reads it. Past four or five lines, it's too much, people tune out and scroll away. And if nobody reads you, your message doesn't exist.

This is where a lot of money goes up in smoke. Businesses pay thousands for full pages nobody will ever read. Invisible text costs the same as text that gets read, except it brings in nothing. If it's too long, it's already dead.

No desktop effects on a phone

On a computer, you have a mouse. You hover over an element, a menu appears, some info reveals itself. On a phone, there's no mouse. There's a finger. Anything that relies on hover doesn't exist on mobile.

Same for scroll reveal effects. They look nice on a big screen, in a demo. On a phone, they add weight, they slow things down, they muddle everything. The user doesn't want to guess: they tap, the page opens, they move on.

On mobile, the rule is simple: no magic. Something smooth, natural, that behaves the way the user expects. Nothing to learn, nothing to figure out.

People check a phone outside

One last thing we almost always forget: people on phones are often outside. In full sun, on the bus, with one hand busy and a mediocre connection. You have to design for those conditions, not for the comfort of a well-lit desk.

• Strong contrast, or your buttons vanish in the sun.
• Text big enough, checked on a real phone, not just on your screen.
• A lightweight site that opens even on a bad connection.

If this part isn't handled with care, your site simply isn't readable. And a site you can't read, no matter how much it cost, is useless.

Mobile isn't a "bonus" version of your site. It is your site. The rest is a detail. If there's one thing you check before you publish, it's this one: step outside, in broad daylight, and open your site on your phone. You'll know right away.