10 Commandments Of Creating Mobile Content

The makings of a "thumb-stopper."

BuzzFeed generates over five billion content views a month, and 75% of those come from mobile.

We've gathered a few helpful tips along the way to make our mobile user experience even better:

1. Make everything with mobile at top of mind.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

When so much of your audience is on their phones, you have to put mobile first. We preview every BuzzFeed post on Android and iPhone before we look at it on desktop.

2. Integrate your learnings.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Posts with static images perform better on mobile than posts with GIFs, due to buffering time.

3. Keep the user experience in mind.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Short, square videos perform best on Facebook. Why? Because people don't want to turn their phones.

4. Know when your audience is tuning in.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

49% of millennials check their phones within just 5 minutes of waking up. (Deloitte, June 2015)

5. And exactly what they’re tuning in to.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Mobile users don't always have their sound on, so text overlays can be advantageous.

6. Lead with your best content.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Scrolling is more intensive on mobile, so make an impact right off the bat.

7. Cater to multi-taskers — make content they can move in and out of with ease.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

No long walls of text. We repeat: No long walls of text.

8. Same goes for titles: keep it short.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Phone screens are smaller. Your copy should be, too.

9. Make your interface touch-friendly.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

We noticed some of our Share buttons were hard to tap, so we made them bigger. The result? More sharing.

10. And above all, be engaging.

Ben Armson / BuzzFeed

Make something your readers actually want to share — create content that speaks to identity, knowledge, emotion, or all three.