Test a site the way a customer uses a phone: outside, one-handed, on a connection that is not the office wifi. A layout that looks finished on a laptop can still hide the number or move the button under a thumb.
A ten-minute pass
- Open the homepage in sunlight. Can you read the headline without shading the screen?
- Tap the phone number. The dialer should open with the right digits.
- Open the menu, tap a service, and get back.
- Scroll until you find how to start the job. Count the taps.
- Fill the form with a test lead and confirm it arrived.
- Turn the phone sideways only if your customers do. Most will not.
Do this on a phone you did not use to build the site, and ask someone else to try it once. You will skip the buttons you already know are there.
Fix what failed the pass
If the number is not tappable, fix that before any visual tweak. If the menu traps you, fix that next. If the form fails, do not announce the page. Write down the three failures so the next edit does not reintroduce them.
Test the tasks, not the width
A site can look fine in a narrow window and still fail the way a customer uses it. Call the number. Send the form. Open the menu and reach a service. Pinch a job photo and see if it is the work or a blur. Do this outside, with one hand, and with the screen brightness where you would actually hold the phone.
Write down the first thing that failed, not a list of opinions about the colors. Fix that one path and test it again. A second person who does not know the site will find the next problem faster than another pass by the person who built it.
Contractor sites fail in a few repeated ways. Those are listed in mobile problems that show up on contractor sites.
This pass is part of launch for sites we design. Send a link if you want a second person to try it before you send traffic.
