Eight principles of mobile-friendliness

Federal websites and digital services should be available, accessible, and usable on a wide range of devices and platforms. The majority of the public accesses online information and services from mobile devices according to analytics.usa.gov.

It is important to design mobile-friendly and device-agnostic websites and digital services. Learn more about the requirements for delivering a digital-first public experience to understand the policy framework in 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act and OMB Memo M-23-22.

The principles

In 2017, Digital.gov’s Mobile community of practice tested the top federal websites most visited on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). The results of the automated tests, A Guide to To Creating Mobile-Friendly Web Sites, showed us that a few common practices greatly affect the usability of a site on a mobile device.

Building on 2019 results, we examined the automated testing tools themselves. During this review, we found there are eight principles of mobile-friendliness. And if you follow them, they will make your site more usable and user-friendly.

Use these eight principles improve the mobile-friendliness of your sites.