Mobile UX
Most mobile audits are done on a flagship iPhone with a fast connection. That's not your customer.
Test on the right device
Test on an iPhone 12 or a mid-range Android. Unless you have hard data showing your audience is exclusively on premium devices, which almost no brand does, optimize for the average phone.
Image Sizing
Four aspect ratios. Two that matter.
| Ratio | Dimensions | Use |
|---|
| 4:5 | 1080 × 1350px | Default for all product images |
| 1:1 | 1080 × 1080px | Secondary option |
| 9:16 | 1080 × 1920px | UGC video and full-frame content only |
Do not use 4K images. Compress everything to between 400KB and 3MB. Shopify's upload limit is 20MB, that's not a target, it's a ceiling. If images load slowly, customers don't stick around long enough to see them.
Speed
- Don't load all images on page load. Load each element just before a visitor reaches it, roughly 10% before it enters the viewport.
- If images are still loading late, implement skeleton screens so the space is held.
- Run your domain through PageSpeed Insights to see exactly what's slowing you down.
Tap Targets & Basic Functionality
- Hamburger menu opens on first tap
- Search bar opens on first tap
- Buttons register without repeated tapping
This sounds obvious. Test it anyway. Broken tap targets on mid-range phones are more common than they should be, even on 7-figure stores.
Navigation
- Is the nav image-first? People don't read navigation menus. They scan. If it's text-only, most visitors won't engage with it.
- Does it cover every shopping scenario? For a jewelry brand: earrings, rings, necklaces, but also occasion-based: beach, training, date night.
- For high product count brands: do the main nav items have proper sub-selections?
- Is there a search bar inside the navigation drawer?
Dead search results
If a search returns nothing, never show an empty state. Show popular categories. Give them somewhere to go.
Collection Page on Mobile
Two columns max. That's it.
Product Images
- Is there a dedicated zoom modal? Full screen, swipe left/right between images, pinch to zoom, quality preserved at full magnification.
- Regular browser zoom is not acceptable. The zoom modal should be its own intentional UI element.
Content Digestibility
- No paragraph blocks for shipping, returns, or warranty info. Tables only.
- Size charts should open in a drawer, not render inline on the page.
- Use accordions for anything that doesn't need to be visible immediately.
- The goal: minimize vertical scrolling required to find specific information.
Text Size
Product names and body copy should be readable without zooming. Small text on mobile is a conversion killer. If you're squinting at it during the audit, customers are leaving because of it.
Header
- Mobile header should take up no more than 10% of screen height.
- Contents: logo, hamburger menu, search, cart. Optionally: wishlist and account icons.
- If you're adding a sticky subcollection bar, image-first version belongs on the homepage only. Text-first version can run globally.
General
- No scroll animations. They look nice. They slow everything down and add friction.
- Scrolling should be smooth. No jank, no stutter.
- Drawers and modals over inline expansion. Anything that would add vertical height belongs in a drawer.
What good looks like
The site loads fast on a 3-year-old phone. Images are compressed, correctly sized, and load just before they're needed. Taps register on first touch. Navigation is visual, covers every use case, has search built in. Collection pages use two columns. Images zoom properly. Everything that could be a paragraph is a table or an accordion. The header stays out of the way. Scrolling is smooth from top to bottom.
This is 1 area. The full audit covers 11.
Which of your leaks is actually costing the most?
A checklist shows you what to look for. It cannot tell you which leak is bleeding the most revenue on your store, or in what order to fix. The Store Autopsy ranks the 20 to 70 leaks actually costing you money, top 3 surfaced, delivered in about 2 weeks. $800, credited in full toward the fix. Proof, not opinions.
Get the Store Autopsy →
See the full audit