Catering to The PopulationThere is a new trend that is rising over the horizon in web use thanks to smartphones. The availability of cheaper smartphones and faster network has helped the rise of mobile networking. In an article by emarketer it states that More than 2.23 billion people worldwide, or 48.9% of mobile phone users, will go online via mobile at least monthly in 2014We estimate that the total number of mobile phone internet users will rise 16.5% in 2014 and maintain double-digit growth through 2016. This rising trend to accessing the Internet through a smartphones is why mobile website should be given as much thorough planning as you would do with the desktop version of your website.

There are obvious limitations to smartphones, naming the obvious is processing power though newly released phone now come with faster processors, they are still not as fast compared to desktop or laptop processors. This is an aspect that should be thought about thoroughly when designing the mobile version of your website. If it is loaded with plenty of graphics, there is a strong possibility that a smartphone will load it slowly or even worse crash and fail to load at all.

Another thing that should be considered is file sizes of your graphics though the emergence of 4G in wireless standard speed is considered fast, it still is not as fast a wired connection. This is the main bottleneck for most devices. Large file sizes for example an image will take time to load compared to images that has been compressed correctly for the web.

The preferred screen orientation of most users is portrait because they prefer to use with one hand. In a research by UXmatters they found that 49% of users hold their smart phones one handed, cradled 36% and two handed 15%. It is suggested to design your website for one handed use because this caters for a very large market and in particular a right handed design. In an article by LiveScience they reported that left handers only account to 10% of the total population. This means 9/10 a smartphone user will be right handed. It is far better to cater your design to the mass population. Though there are some small fixes to the design that could cater to both left and right handers such as composing most buttons centred on a page.Reference:

Smartphone Users Worldwide Will Total 1.75 Billion in 2014 - eMarketer . 2015. Smartphone Users Worldwide Will Total 1.75 Billion in 2014 - eMarketer . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Smartphone-Users-Worldwide-Will-Total-175-Billion-2014/1010536. [Accessed 19 May 2015].

How Do Users Really Hold Mobile Devices? :: UXmatters. 2015. How Do Users Really Hold Mobile Devices? :: UXmatters. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/how-do-users-really-hold-mobile-devices.php. [Accessed 19 May 2015].

Study Reveals Why Lefties Are Rare. 2015. Study Reveals Why Lefties Are Rare. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.livescience.com/19968-study-reveals-lefties-rare.html. [Accessed 19 May 2015].