Mobile devices give your users more choice in the way they consume your content. Providing content in flexible formats that allow it to be resized for different screen sizes, different bandwidths and different browsers, readers or media players improves their reading experience and helps to ensure your content will work on new types of devices as they become available.
Newspapers found they were losing readers as more and more people turned to online sources for their news. A 2012 report from the Pew Internet project shows that by making their content easily accessible online and on handheld devices newspapers are able to retain their readers (Mitchell, Rosenstiel, Christian & Pew Research Center, 2012).
According to a report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc (GIA 2012) “About 70% of mobile users are expected to use mobile Internet services on a daily basis in the coming years, particularly in the US and Europe.”
There are also a growing number of people whose only access to the internet is through a smartphone. Some countries which offer new markets have more mobile internet access than desktop access.
Designing for mobile has been shown to benefit desktop design. Web developers have noted that designing for mobile first can improve accessibility and usability because the design will be focused on the core content and functionality required. There are also strong similarities between accessibility and optimal mobile design.
M-Libraries Conference 2012