The phrase about having the internet in your pocket was already appearing in newspaper headlines in 1999.
Heading into 2027, it’s more about having the internet in your hands most of the time. We hardly leave our phones alone. And yet, some businesses still haven’t ‘tapped’ into the touchscreen by prioritising the handheld versions of their websites.
In Ireland, mobile accounted for 67.5% of the web traffic measured by Statcounter in September 2026. That’s a lot of people to treat as an afterthought. Designing upwards from mobile helps you prioritise what matters on a small screen before making room for more on a desktop.
At Kooba, we’ve been calling ourselves a mobile-first agency since 2019, and we’re hardly using our phones any less now.
Not ‘this, but smaller’
You might have a lovely-looking site and simply want to cram it into iPhone proportions. But please don’t make it a second thought.
Sometimes it's because businesses rely on an app. People don’t want another 50MB artefact on their home screen. They visit different sites throughout the day – give them a smooth, smart-looking website they can get what they want from and leave.
Big issues on a small screen: worst-case user scenario
- A slow intro: Large images, videos and unnecessary scripts make people wait, especially on an older phone or a patchy mobile connection.
- Relentless pop-ups: The site finally loads, and then you’re hit with several pop-ups around permissions, chat bubbles and cookies. You’re trying to uncover the website before you can even use it.
- Cluttered UI: You get through all that and start navigating; you suddenly feel ham-fisted trying to press the microscopic buttons and links designed for ants.
There’s an accessibility issue here, too. W3C’s guidance on target size and spacing explains how small controls placed too close together make it harder to press the right one, particularly for people with limited dexterity.
Ringing up the cost
It’s not even hyperbole anymore to say we live in the digital world. People have other digital places to be and won’t hang around waiting for an inhospitable site.
Back in 2016, Google found that 53% of mobile visits were abandoned if a page took more than three seconds to load. Businesses have had plenty of warning.
The cost also shows up in conversions. In Deloitte Ireland’s 2020 Milliseconds Make Millions study, a 0.1-second improvement in mobile site speed was associated with an 8.4% increase in retail conversions and a 10.1% increase in travel conversions across the European and US sites studied. Every second truly counts.
Slower loads can also affect SEO. Google uses Core Web Vitals in its ranking systems, so loading performance and responsiveness are part of the picture, meaning your site could become a low priority, buried beyond the first-page results.
Think of the scroller
You have to think of the mobile user differently. They might have just come from the pace of reels or TikToks, be browsing one-handed or simply want to get information quickly. Strip away the clutter for people who aren’t experiencing the scale of a computer screen.
Give buttons room to breathe, keep everything readable without zooming. There’s plenty to check, so the Kooba method is always just trying the whole journey on a real phone and seeing what isn’t working.
Beyond phones and traditional scrolling, the future is changing how we interact away from the desktop. Smartwatches bring even smaller screens and haptic feedback into the mix. Phone touch screens can now fold like an old Motorola. For now, we’ll avoid the awkward topic of smart glasses, but those will bring their own unique UX considerations too. There’s still plenty to get right on the screen already in our hands.
