According to Pew report, one in three U.S. adults own a tablet. But perhaps more interesting is that this number is double from just a year ago and shows signs of rapidly increasing. The report also noted households earned at least $75,000 per year and 49 percent were college graduates.
With tablet ownership rapidly rising, can you really afford not to optimize your site accordingly? It's hard to ignore one-third of your audience and potential customer base and still expect sales conversions or a loyal readership. But optimizing doesn't necessarily mean spending an abundance of precious time and money. There are a handful of relatively simple tricks you can start using immediately to keep your site tablet friendly.
Use Contextual Keyboards
Typing software can be clunky and awkward and frustrate tablet users. Use a keyboard with appropriate symbols to complete whatever task you want them to do. So if you’re asking for a reply or feedback about a product, make sure the keyboard has appropriate punctuation and navigation buttons to type easily and freely.
Increase Image Resolution
Tablet users like to rotate, expand and shrink images to check them out thoroughly. But a small image means pixelated resolution once your image is blown up. Switch to high-resolution photos with crisp and clear text or images to keep your tablet users happy.
Regardless of how you optimize your website for tablets, check how it looks yourself. You can either borrow a tablet or use a site like iPadPreview.com or ipadPeek.com to plug in your URL and see what your site looks like on an iPad. Get started testing out your tablet-friendly site with a retina display option. T-Mobile offers 7.9-inch Multi-touch displays that should give you an idea of how well your tablet works.
Make Bigger Buttons
Just how small are your buttons? Check your site on a tablet and see how easy it is to hit 'Enter' and other required actions. If your customer needs to use the edge of their pinkie just to activate the button, it's not big enough. You'll have frustrated customers or readers leaving in droves.
Remember tablet users and swiping and zooming in and out of the screen with their fingers and need like-minded content interface. Make everything your tablet users are doing bigger from font size to buttons to ensure readability and functionality.
Make it Lightning Fast
According to Compuware, over two thirds of tablet users expect websites to load in approximately two seconds. They reported that tablet fans also expect any site to load much faster than they would on a traditional desktop computer. While there's not much you can do about your audience's Internet connection, you can tweak your site to make sure it loads as fast as possible. Get rid of unnecessary animations on each page and remove unused CSS and tags. You can also get rid of 'include' files whenever possible.
Skip the Pagination
When the only game in town was desktops and laptops, it was easy to justify paginating all pages for easy reading. But today tablet and mobile users are accustomed to scrolling rapidly with their fingertips. Remove pagination and save your visitors time and frustration.