The SharePoint mobile App is a great way to access your content when you’re away from the office. If your user community uses the mobile app then it is important to design pages that will display nicely on a phone when designing SharePoint pages.

The page, section layout and web-part order all play an important part in making a great mobile experience. If you have a two column section, all of the web-parts in the left hand column appear first and then the right hand column.

On the mobile app the news web-part is displayed first and then quick links. I have used a new section to push the Company Events and Employee Spotlight below the Quick Links. If these web-parts were in one section, they would appear News, Events, Quick Links, and finally Employee Spotlight.

Other things to consider when creating SharePoint sites for mobile users include the choice of web-part layouts, navigation elements and types of content.

• The carousel layout for the News web-part reduces scrolling to web-parts further down the page. Other layouts display the news posts underneath each other increasing the amount of scrolling.
• Quick Links using the Tiles layout makes nice easy to read buttons on the mobile app. Some of the other options are more difficult to read and can create additional scrolling.
• The Mega Menu option is better for navigation than the classic menu.
• If you are using PDF files check the layout to ensure they are easily readable on a mobile devices smaller screen.

I’ve also made a video explaining how to layout pages in Communication sites. Note that this also works for Team Sites.

The Mobile App is a great tool. To give users the best experience think about the layout of your pages and the use of sections to control the order items appear.

This video is a quick demo of the features. Including the navigation and page layouts

About the Author:

Steve Knutson is a Microsoft MVP for Office Services and Apps (Office 365 and SharePoint) and Technology Consultant focused on SharePoint and related technologies. Steve has a B.Sc in Computer Science from Massey University. In 2011 Steve co-founded Stratos Technology Partners, a Software Engineering and Technology Consulting firm based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Reference:

Knutson, S. (2020). Designing SharePoint for Mobile App users. Available at: https://steveknutson.blog/2020/07/17/sharepoint-design-for-mobile-app-user/ [Accessed: 22nd July 2020].