Mobile-first design is a design philosophy in which the design process starts with creating a design specifically for mobile devices, and then scaling it up to larger screens such as tablets and desktops. It focuses on providing an optimal user experience on smaller screens with limited space, processing power, and bandwidth.
The approach involves designing for the smallest screen size first, typically a smartphone, and then working up to larger screens. This forces designers to prioritize content and features, and to think about the most efficient ways to present information to users. The mobile-first approach also encourages designers to use techniques such as responsive design and progressive enhancement to ensure that the user experience is consistent across all devices.
Mobile-first design is important because mobile devices have become the primary device for accessing the internet. More than 50% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices, and this number is only increasing. Therefore, designing for mobile devices first ensures that users have a positive experience when accessing content and services on smaller screens, which can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
In addition, mobile-first design also has SEO benefits. Google has stated that mobile-friendly websites will rank higher in search results, and they have also started to use mobile-first indexing, which means that they use the mobile version of a website as the primary version for indexing and ranking.