Thinking Mobile
Every organization with an online presence—aka 99.9% of the universe—should be thinking mobile. Adobe Analytics says mobile transactions on Cyber Monday topped three billion dollars. That represents the highest year-over-year leap in mobile spending ever. If mobile use is not yet the queen, it’s a step away from the throne.
Even on Black Friday, when millions of holiday shoppers walked into stores, nearly 40 percent of buying was done elsewhere via smartphones.
In the exciting world of registration management, Learning Stream sees increasing numbers of mobile users as well. About 10 percent of potential trainees and others access the registration process via mobile devices. As one would expect, most registrants are at their desks when they sign up for a workshop or required training. Still, a good mobile experience is essential. Therefore, thinking mobile by creating the easiest registration experience possible is more important than ever.
These six ways to be thinking mobile can help make a registrant’s mobile experience hassle-free:
- Responsive design: Any registration pages and forms should be, by default, responsive. That means they automatically resize to any device, whether it’s a five-year-old desktop or the latest smartphone.
- Simple, straightforward text: You can read a 600-page novel like East of Eden on your smartphone. Unless you’re John Steinbeck, however, keep your training descriptions and registration questions as succinct as possible. Imagine what would be easily read on a 5.8-inch screen.
- Clean graphics: A responsive design will shrink most graphics as needed. Still, busy graphics and complex images don’t do registrants any favors. Be a minimalist.
- Linked questions: Rather than have a long list of required fields, use conditional logic when possible. It makes a cleaner-looking form. For example, only when a registrant answers Yes to a question does a subset of other questions appear. Registrants never need see questions that don’t apply to them.
- No to lots of hyperlinks: Sometimes, you must “attach” other files and documents via hyperlink to the event description or related pages. However, consider ways to avoid hyperlinking to additional data. Perhaps an abbreviated section of text can convey what you need to say just as effectively.
All these rules for thinking mobile work well for desktop users, too. If you’re interested in exploring other benefits of a mobile interface for registration, reach out to Learning Stream here.