Your website should be as user-friendly as possible no matter what field you're in, but that user-friendliness becomes even more crucial when you work with something as technical and as complicated as cooker parts. Cooker Spare Parts is a Cardiff-based enterprise specialising - as the name suggests - in replacement cooker parts, and we have just completed a brand new website design for them.

Now, there are literally thousands of different items that you can purchase through Cooker Spare Parts; in all our years developing ecommerce websites, this may well be the largest product database we've ever worked with. Factor in the very real possibility that the average CSP customer may not know exactly what they are looking for, and things start to get very complex indeed - even if you know your cooker's brand (e.g. Rangemaster), you won't necessarily know the specific model number, and this is the information that companies like CSP need to give you the correct part.

Clearly, this project would be a big challenge, but we're pleased to say that we have well and truly conquered it. Upon arriving at the new Cooker Spare Parts home page, users are prompted to enter their appliance's manufacturer and model number right away, therefore eliminating as much ambiguity as possible right off the bat. Once this is done, the site ONLY displays parts that are suitable for that specific cooker, ensuring that the customer purchases exactly the right item.

Aside from the improved user interface, we also gave Cooker Spare Parts a sleek new design. The site is now fully responsive, allowing people to order replacement parts with ease on any device at all. The crisp, clear page layout ensures that the user knows exactly what (s)he is seeing at any given stage of the buying process, and we feel the red and white colour scheme looks very sharp and modern. Visit cookerspareparts.com now to see our work for yourself!

More and more people are using smartphones - instead of desktop computers - to browse the web, and as mobile internet usage increases, so too does the amount of money spent online via mobile. In fact, shopping is one of the most common things that people do with their phones nowadays; this Econsultancy report suggests that 24% of mobile internet users have made purchases using their phones, and since that figure was just 20% back in 2013, it's probably safe to assume that smartphone shopping will continue to get more and more popular as time goes by.

If you have an ecommerce website, these statistics are not to be ignored. You have probably already noticed a swing towards mobile traffic on your site, and all the facts suggest that this trend is going to continue, so it's very much in your best interests to take a good look at your site and ask yourself how well-optimised it is for smartphone users.

If you want to turn your mobile visitors into mobile customers, here are three tips for giving them a better experience and boosting your mobile conversions:

It's a small screen - don't clutter it up!

The most obvious difference between mobile phones and desktop PCs is the screen size. When you're thinking about how your website should look on a mobile phone, be sure to make the most important elements instantly and clearly visible - this may mean stripping back the less essential parts of each page (such as promotional banners and unnecessary text) so as to fit everything in without making it hard to read. If users are having to scroll back and forth and squint at their screens just to find what they're looking for, there's a pretty strong chance that they'll give up before they reach the checkout.

Speed is everything!

This mantra doesn't just apply to loading times (although these are obviously critical on any device); it also applies to the user's journey through your site. Bear in mind that mobile users often have limited time to spend on your site, particularly if they're on a train or in the loo (you may laugh - 75% of people admit to doing it!)

If you want users to be able to fit a transaction into this short window of time, you need to make the whole process as quick as possible. If your site doesn't already use PayPal, consider adding it, as this will save a lot of users from having to painstakingly enter their payment details. An 'express checkout' option can also help - is it really worth forcing new users to register for an account before purchasing? Some will do it, but many will simply go elsewhere.

More generally, it's a good idea to go through each step of your site's buying journey and note down any steps that could be streamlined or removed - remember, each step is another opportunity for your customer to change their mind and leave the site!

Keep payment simple

We've already mentioned PayPal, but that's not the only way to make payment that little bit less painful for your customers. Another important difference between smartphones and PCs is the lack of a mouse or keyboard, and this can make entering one's details on a mobile extremely fiddly. Make sure that the data entry boxes (card number, customer name, etc.) are of an easily-clickable size, and try not to include too many of them (do you really need their address, their telephone number AND their email address?)

Some more quick tips for the checkout page:

• Instead of forcing everyone to enter their addresses manually, use an address lookup system that allows users to enter a postcode and select the correct address from a drop-down list. This cuts down on the amount of typing required to complete a purchase.
  
  
• Make your delivery options as clear as possible. If, at a glance, people don't know a) how soon their items will arrive and b) how much it will cost, they'll be reluctant to go through with the purchase.
  
  
• Are there boxes to tick? If users have to tick a 'Terms and Conditions' box at the checkout, make sure it's nice and big - that way, they won't miss it, and it'll be easy to click on!

 Want to make your site more mobile-friendly? Why not consider upgrading to a responsive design?

Are you sick of your job? Are you longing to pack it in and try something completely different? If you answered 'yes' to either of those questions, you need Training Courses Bristol. They provide accredited training courses for students from all over the South West, and we recently completed their brand new website, making it easier than ever to enrol!

Upon arrival at the new TCB site, you will be presented with a variety of different training options - electrical courses, plumbing courses, and so on. This makes it nice and easy to drill right down to the field in which you're interested. Let's say, for example, that you're looking to become a professional gas engineer; you'd just click 'Gas Courses' on the homepage, select one of TCB's recommended courses, and fill in the contact form to enquire. It could scarcely be simpler!

Training Courses Bristol have helped innumerable people to change careers, and in spite of their name, they're not just for Bristolians - in fact, they cover all of South West England, from Cornwall and Devon to Hereford, Gloucester and beyond. They even have courses that allow experienced tradespeople to widen their skillsets, so whether you're a novice or a professional, we strongly recommend visiting trainingcoursesbristol.co.uk today.

There was a time when people could only access the internet on a PC, but those days are well and truly behind us. In this day and age, the humble desktop computer is just one of many, many different ways in which we can get online, and your customers are now just as likely to see your website on a mobile phone as on a proper computer.

This could well be a problem for you. Just because your company's website looks great and functions perfectly on a PC doesn't mean that it will work just as well on a smartphone; in fact, if the site wasn't made with mobile devices in mind, there's a very strong chance that it will be next to unusable. Smartphone usage is going up every day, so simply ignoring your mobile traffic won't be a viable option for long - you'll either have to find a way to give those visitors a good user experience, or face the fact that you're going to lose them to a competitor who was prepared to make that extra effort.

Once you've decided to make the leap to mobile, there's another big decision to make: do you create an app for your business, or plump for a responsive website that will look good on screens of any size? This is a hotly-debated topic, and we at Designer Websites couldn't resist throwing in our 2p. Here are some pros and cons:

Mobile App

Pros:

• Stays with the user, remaining on their device after download
• Designed specifically for mobile - no need to change the desktop version of your site
• Can incorporate 'push notifications' to keep the user coming back

Cons:

• Download required (demands more commitment from the user)
• May be hard to find in the App Store (what does your business share its name with?)
• Your website will still look poor on mobile devices
• No search engine presence

Responsive Website

Pros:

• Attractive, user-friendly, and consistent across all devices
• SEO-friendly (your business is more likely to appear in search results)
• No download or commitment required from user (unlike apps)

Cons:

• Less permanent than an app - doesn't stay with the user
• Requires a redesign of your current site

So which is the right choice? To be honest, it depends on your business and what you're trying to achieve. For our part, though, we'd always recommend a responsive site over an app, simply because it ensures that all users are seeing the same information and getting a consistent user experience. Click here to learn more about responsive design, or click here to get a quote for a responsive site of your own.

Hyper Recruitment Solutions is the recruitment business that is co-owned by 2012 Apprentice winner Ricky Martin and business magnate Lord Alan Sugar. HRS specialise in science and technology; they help employers from within these sectors to recruit bright new talent, and they enable talented jobseekers to find rewarding work in such fields as biotechnology, pharmacy, and engineering.

We have been working with Ricky Martin and HRS ever since the business was founded - the company's website, www.hyperec.com, was designed and developed by the team here at Designer Websites. A few weeks ago, Ricky asked us to make his website more mobile-friendly; like many of our clients, he had decided that it was time to go responsive.

The new and improved HRS website is now live, and we hope that Ricky and Lord Sugar are as proud of it as we are. The site is now fully responsive, which means that it displays differently on different-sized screens. This makes it much easier to navigate on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices; with more and more people swapping their desktop PCs for iPads and Androids, this is a crucial consideration, and we are confident that the HRS site's many mobile users will be more than satisfied with its new responsive design.

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