How to check whether your website actually works on a phone

Most owners test their website on a phone by opening it on their own, on office wifi, having already decided it is fine. That test passes almost every time and tells you nothing. Here is a version that does not.

Turn wifi off first. Use mobile data. This one change is the difference between a useful test and a reassuring one.

The six checks

• Count the seconds until you can read the headline. Not until the page finishes, until you can read something. Over three seconds is a problem. Over eight and most visitors have already gone.
• Try to scroll sideways. On every page. If anything moves horizontally, the layout is broken, and it will be broken for every visitor rather than just for you.
• Tap the phone number. If the dialler does not open, the number is an image or plain text rather than a link. On the device most of your visitors use, your main call to action does nothing.
• Read one full paragraph without zooming. If you have to pinch, the text is too small. Sixteen pixels is the floor for body text on a phone, and a lot of older sites sit at eleven.
• Fill in the enquiry form with your thumb. Not a finger on a desk, a thumb while holding the phone. If the fields are too close together to tap accurately, buyers will mis tap and give up.
• Find one specific product. Pick something you sell and try to reach its details from the home page in three taps. If you cannot, neither can a buyer who does not already know your site.

Why this matters more in India than the benchmarks suggest

Two things compound. A large share of enquiry traffic arrives on a phone rather than a desktop, often on a connection that is nominally 4G and practically much less. And the buyer is frequently in a market, on a floor, or in transit, where a connection drops between one screen and the next.

A site built to be viewed on an office desktop over a leased line has no margin for any of that.

What a pass looks like

Headline readable in under three seconds. No horizontal movement anywhere. Phone number opens the dialler. Body text readable without zooming. Form completable with a thumb. Any product reachable in three taps.

If you fail more than two of those, the fix is a rebuild rather than adjustments, because the layout was designed for a screen your buyers are not using.

Written by Sameer Gaikwad, founder of Buildgin. Thirty three years in electrical power systems across global MNCs, now applying the same condition monitoring habit to websites.