Kevin McNally, the CEO and founder of Interactive Palette, is at the forefront of web design and knows that tablets are quickly becoming a bigger market, and what millions of Americans use to access the internet every day. When asked about the subject, McNally had much to say about it. He comments that often, much of what appears on the web is simply just too much for a tablet display to handle. Therefore, designers should focus on a quick-loading and clean-looking mobile design that is specific to tablets. Further, when browsing a tablet, consumers don’t have the ease of control that a mouse or trackpad allows for. Designers should keep this in mind as well, and design to accommodate for the human finger.
When designing for tablets, often many designers want to incorporate Flash browser plugins and surplus software, as they would for their computer counterparts. McNally stresses to simply leave that all behind. HTML5 is the simplest route, and it will work well across many different platforms. Also, while the grid system of most web sites works at roughly 960 pixels, resolutions should be designed at around 1024 pixels for tablets to allow for better, smoother displays.
Tablets, over the past couple years, have rapidly become a vast market to expand into. iPads, Kindle Fires, Galaxy Tabs have all come to create a new kind of ‘fold’, says McNally. He notes that designers must remember to keep orientation in mind when designing for tablets. Often, what looks spot on in portrait mode will look stretched or distorted in landscape, and likewise it is important that the vital information of your webpage not be covered when switching orientation, or that consumers not need to swipe and scroll to find that information.
Finally, McNally points out the easiest way to ensure that your webpage fits the bill for tablets: testing. Test your design on as many tablets as possible to be sure of its viability, that the resolution and orientation are consistent, and that it won’t fail the “touch test.†If it doesn’t respond to your fingers, it’s not much use being loaded onto a tablet.
The future of business and technology is changing, and it’s tantamount that companies change with them. Kevin McNally knows all too well the importance these emerging technologies have on how consumers access the web and makes a clear-cut case for how designers should begin to view the tablet space. Either they should bear in mind how they appear on the widening tablet market, or they had better get used to being a thing of the past.
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Barry is a nationally recognized expert on small business who has given hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging in size from 20 to 20,000. As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he has also taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has appeared on many TV and radio programs such as CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, MSNBC’s Your Business and NPR’s The Tavis Smiley Show. He hosts his own radio show, Business Insanity Talk Radio, and writes regularly for the American Express Open Forum, and Forbes.com.
