Interactive Website Features That Do Not Work on Phones

Interactive website features that do not work on phones are the ones built on mouse hover, because touch screens cannot hover. If your tooltips, dropdown menus, or expandable cards only respond to hover, more than half your visitors cannot use them. Every hover interaction needs a tap equivalent.

Touch screens cannot hover. Keyboards cannot hover. Screen readers cannot hover. If your website has tooltips, dropdown menus, or expandable cards that only respond to mouse hover, you have excluded more than half your visitors from accessing that content.

Every hover interaction needs a non-hover equivalent: a tap to toggle on mobile, keyboard support for Enter and Space keys, and proper accessibility attributes for screen readers. This is not optional. It is a usability requirement for the majority of your traffic.

When we find one hover-only element during QA, we audit every interactive element on the site. The underlying assumption ("everyone uses a mouse") tends to be systemic. If the dropdown only works on hover, the tooltips probably do too.

Topics

mobile UXaccessibilityinteraction designtouch screenswebsite usability

Frequently asked

Why do some website features not work on phones?

Touch screens cannot hover, keyboards cannot hover, and screen readers cannot hover. If your site has tooltips, dropdown menus, or expandable cards that only respond to mouse hover, you have excluded more than half your visitors from that content.

How do you fix hover-only features?

Every hover interaction needs a non-hover equivalent: a tap to toggle on mobile, keyboard support for the Enter and Space keys, and proper accessibility attributes for screen readers. This is a usability requirement for the majority of your traffic, not optional.

Is one hover-only element usually the whole problem?

No. When one hover-only element turns up during QA, audit every interactive element on the site, because the underlying assumption that everyone uses a mouse tends to be systemic. If the dropdown only works on hover, the tooltips probably do too.