With the popularity of mobile devices steadily increasing, many developers are now charged with the challenge of creating web pages that can be viewed on them. Obviously, mobile website design needs pages that are easy to read, and is very important because of the small screen size. Since many limitations with regards to location have almost been eliminated through the use of high speed CPU and memory chips and radio technology, the ability to access data online has become easier from a mobile phone.

Many people who access the Internet on their PC at home can now access these same pages from their PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), or their mobile phone while traveling between work and home. Designers should bear in mind that the information they display on a larger screen might not display all that well when scaled down to display on a smaller one.

Web pages being designed today are generally created and tested on computers that use larger monitors. Although the modern mobile device has advanced technologically, its display screen is still relatively small thus limiting the amount of information they can display on one page. Designers now need to carefully consider how they are going to display information that will be displayed on a small screen.

Some of the factors to be considered for a mobile website are: the amount of color information (16 or 32 bit), slower text input, the lack of a pointing device which limits user interaction, many portable devices can only scroll vertically, the devices often use soft keys for commands, data transfer is slower, data storage is limited and each packet of data transferred has to be paid for.

On top of this, mobile users prefer shorter URL's which reduces typing. A long text link is preferred however, as it is easy to see and select on the screen. Keep any navigation selections lower down the screen and not on top. Stay away from too many different text sizes on one screen and keep the special properties such as italics and underlining to a minimum.

Try to place small images on a page. The phone is capable of zooming in, but if they are kept small, downloading time will be reduced. Large images can divert attention away from the underlying message that is being conveyed. Placing large images first on the screen could make the wait for important information tedious while the image is being downloaded.

The design characteristics of mobile web pages have been examined by this article. The following is a summary of the findings. Readability is a primary objective for a small screen. Choose colors, fonts and alignment very carefully. The order of the document should be well thought out, and last but not least, use images that are suitable for displaying on small screens.