The digital design world has been obsessed with mobile-first thinking for over a decade now. Since Google’s algorithm updates started favouring mobile-friendly sites and smartphone usage exploded worldwide, we’ve collectively nodded along with the mantra that “mobile comes first, desktop is secondary.”
It’s become almost heretical to question this principle in design meetings.
But what if this mobile-first dogma is holding back many websites from reaching their full potential? What if we’ve overcorrected and are now neglecting the still-crucial desktop experience?
In 2025, the pendulum appears to be swinging back toward a more balanced approach. Data is increasingly showing that for many businesses and industries, the desktop experience remains vitally important—and in some cases, even more valuable than mobile.
Let’s challenge some assumptions and explore why a more context-aware approach might serve users (and your business) better than blindly following the mobile-first mantra.
The Mobile-First Dogma: How We Got Here
It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when websites were designed exclusively for desktop screens. The mobile revolution that began with the iPhone in 2007 transformed everything, pushing designers and developers to adapt their thinking for smaller screens.
By 2015, Google had fully embraced mobile, announcing that more searches were happening on mobile than on desktop computers. In 2018, they implemented mobile-first indexing, essentially telling the world: “We’re primarily going to judge your website based on its mobile version.”
“Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.” — Google Search Central
This shift made perfect business sense at the time. Mobile usage was skyrocketing, and many websites provided terrible experiences on phones. Something had to change.
The industry responded enthusiastically—perhaps too enthusiastically. Mobile-first design became the default approach for virtually every website project, regardless of audience, purpose, or business goals. Designers began concepting exclusively on mobile screens first, then adapting those designs for larger screens later.
Major frameworks like Bootstrap embraced mobile-first CSS as standard practice. Design courses taught mobile-first as gospel. Companies invested heavily in mobile apps while letting their desktop experiences stagnate.
What started as a necessary correction became an unquestioned principle. But the data in 2025 tells a more complicated story.
The Nuanced Reality: Traffic vs. Revenue vs. Engagement
While mobile traffic continues to dominate pure traffic numbers globally (hovering around 60% of all web traffic), the reality beneath those statistics reveals something more nuanced. What matters isn’t just who visits your site, but what they do when they get there.
For many businesses—particularly in B2B, professional services, and high-consideration purchases—desktop users convert at significantly higher rates. A 2023 Wolfgang Digital study found that desktop users were 164% more likely to convert than mobile users across e-commerce sites. Even more telling, they generated 71% higher average order values.
This pattern hasn’t changed much in 2025. While mobile traffic leads in volume, desktop often leads in value.
Consider these revealing statistics from recent industry analyses:
- Desktop users spend 40% more time on site per session
- Form completion rates are typically 2-3x higher on desktop
- Complex purchases and B2B sales close at much higher rates on larger screens
- Content consumption metrics (time on page, scroll depth) remain significantly stronger on desktop
The financial services industry presents a particularly stark example. While banking apps dominate for quick transactions, research from McKinsey shows that complex financial decisions like mortgage applications, investment accounts, and retirement planning still predominantly happen on desktop devices.
The Multi-Device Customer Journey
Perhaps most importantly, we now understand that customers don’t live exclusively in either mobile or desktop worlds—they move between devices constantly. Research indicates that over 90% of consumers use multiple devices to complete a single transaction or task.
“The average consumer now owns 3.5 connected devices, with 81% switching between them regularly during a single online journey.” — Consumer Device Usage Report 2024
This reality makes mobile-first thinking particularly problematic. When you prioritize one context at the expense of another, you’re potentially undermining the customer journey at critical points.
At The Web Shop, we’ve witnessed this first-hand with clients who initially insisted on mobile-optimized designs that inadvertently created friction in desktop experiences—only to discover that’s where their most valuable conversions were happening.
Where Mobile-First Actually Hurts User Experience
Mobile-first design has produced some undeniable benefits: websites are generally more focused, load faster, and work across more devices. But when applied dogmatically, this approach can severely compromise experiences in several key areas:
Data Visualization and Dashboards
Complex data requires space to breathe. Financial dashboards, analytics platforms, and data visualization tools fundamentally suffer when forced into mobile-first frameworks. Companies like Tableau and PowerBI still generate most of their usage on desktop because some tasks simply demand screen real estate.
When these tools try to be too mobile-friendly, they often sacrifice critical functionality. Users notice.
Content-Rich Experiences
Long-form content, research papers, and detailed product specifications all benefit from the breathing room desktop provides. News sites like The New York Times and The Guardian maintain sophisticated desktop layouts because they know serious readers prefer larger screens for deep engagement.
Mobile reading is excellent for scanning headlines, but desktop remains superior for sustained information consumption.
Creative Tools and Productivity Software
Try editing a complex document, spreadsheet, or design file on mobile. While it’s technically possible, the experience remains fundamentally compromised compared to desktop equivalents. Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office, and similar productivity tools all prioritize their desktop experiences for good reason.
The constraints of mobile interfaces make certain complex tasks significantly more difficult and time-consuming.
Multi-Step Processes
Complex checkout flows, lengthy forms, and multi-stage application processes frequently suffer when designed mobile-first. The limited screen space forces excessive pagination, hiding of context, and cognitive overload as users struggle to maintain awareness of where they are in the process.
When implementing our design process for clients with complex user journeys, we’ve consistently found that starting with the full desktop experience leads to more coherent solutions across all devices.
“The most successful multi-step processes we’ve designed start with a comprehensive desktop vision, then thoughtfully reduce for smaller screens—not the reverse.” — Senior UX Designer at The Web Shop
The Context-First Approach: A Better Framework
Rather than defaulting to mobile-first, forward-thinking designers and developers are increasingly advocating for a context-first approach. This methodology begins by asking fundamental questions about user context before making device-specific decisions:
- Where are users when they need this functionality?
- What are their environmental constraints (time, attention, posture)?
- Which device is most appropriate for completing specific tasks?
- What are the user’s goals and emotional states in different contexts?
Context-first design acknowledges that sometimes mobile should lead, sometimes desktop should lead, and sometimes they require equal but different approaches.
This isn’t about abandoning responsive design principles—it’s about applying them more thoughtfully based on actual user needs rather than industry dogma.
Determining Your Primary Context
The first step in context-first design is determining where different user journeys typically begin and end. Analytics can reveal these patterns:
- Which devices dominate at different stages of the funnel?
- Where do conversions most frequently occur?
- What tasks are users attempting on different devices?
- When do users switch devices in a single journey?
For many business websites, especially those involving complex services or high-value transactions, the data often reveals a mixed pattern: initial discovery happens on mobile, but research and conversion happen on desktop.
This insight would suggest prioritizing awareness content for mobile optimization while ensuring conversion pathways are exceptionally well-crafted for desktop.
When we help clients with their website features and benefits, we always emphasize matching design priorities to actual user behavior across devices, not just following trends.
Technical Implementation: Beyond Responsive Design
Responsive design represented a massive leap forward in cross-device compatibility, but its typical implementation often creates unnecessary compromises. The standard responsive approach uses essentially the same content and features across all devices, merely rearranging them to fit different screen sizes.
More sophisticated approaches now include:
Adaptive Content Strategy
Rather than simply reflowing the same content, modern sites can serve fundamentally different content experiences based on device context. This might mean:
- Shorter, punchier copy on mobile
- More detailed information architecture on desktop
- Device-appropriate media (video formats, image crops)
- Context-specific calls to action
This approach requires more content planning and management but delivers significantly better experiences.
Progressive Enhancement and Feature Parity
Instead of limiting desktop experiences to what works on mobile, progressive enhancement builds a core experience that works everywhere, then enhances it for devices with greater capabilities.
This might include:
- Advanced filtering options on desktop product catalogs
- Keyboard shortcuts and productivity features on larger screens
- Rich hover states and interactions where appropriate
- Multi-panel interfaces that utilize available space
The key principle: different devices should offer appropriate capabilities rather than identical ones.
Performance Optimization by Context
While performance matters everywhere, the specific optimizations differ by device context. Mobile users may prioritize initial load speed and data efficiency, while desktop users might benefit more from preloading additional resources for smoother subsequent interactions.
This contextual approach to performance leads to better experiences than one-size-fits-all optimizations.
“The future isn’t about mobile-first or desktop-first—it’s about understanding each context and designing appropriately for the user’s needs in that moment.” — UX Research Lead
Case Studies: When Desktop-Priority Worked Better
Let’s examine some real-world examples where prioritizing the desktop experience yielded superior results:
Financial Services Platform Redesign
A major financial services company initially embraced a strict mobile-first approach for their investor platform redesign. The resulting mobile experience was clean and simple, but when scaled up to desktop, it felt sparse and underpowered.
Analytics revealed that while 70% of users checked balances via mobile, 82% of actual transactions and account changes occurred on desktop. The company pivoted to a desktop-priority approach for transactional interfaces while maintaining mobile optimization for informational content.
The result: a 34% increase in desktop conversions with no negative impact on mobile usage.
B2B Software Company
A B2B software provider followed conventional wisdom with a mobile-first redesign of their marketing site. Six months later, they discovered several problems:
- Desktop visitors still comprised 67% of all traffic
- 91% of qualified leads came through desktop sessions
- Product demo requests (their primary conversion) were almost exclusively completed on desktop
By reorienting their design process to prioritize the desktop experience for key conversion paths while maintaining mobile support for awareness content, they increased lead quality by 28% and demo requests by 41%.
Online Education Platform
An e-learning platform found that mobile users primarily consumed short-form content and checked progress, while actual course completion rates were dramatically higher on desktop. By implementing a context-appropriate design strategy, they created:
- Rich, immersive learning experiences optimized for desktop focus
- Simplified progress tracking and bite-sized content for mobile
- Seamless transitions between devices with saved states
This approach increased course completion rates by 47% compared to their previous one-size-fits-all responsive design.
At The Web Shop, we’ve implemented similar context-aware approaches for numerous clients with complex products and services, consistently seeing improved engagement and conversion metrics across all devices.
The Balanced Approach: Multi-Context Design Strategy
So how do we move forward in a world where both mobile and desktop matter? The answer lies in a multi-context design strategy that acknowledges the strengths and limitations of each environment.
Start with User Journeys, Not Devices
Begin by mapping complete user journeys across devices. Understand where users start, where they finish, and where they might switch contexts. This journey-centric approach reveals natural priorities that should guide design decisions.
For instance, if research shows users typically discover your product on mobile but complete purchases on desktop, you’d optimize discovery content for mobile while ensuring the purchase flow shines on desktop.
Design for Parallel Experiences, Not Scaled Ones
Rather than designing one experience that scales across devices, consider creating parallel experiences optimized for each context but connected through consistent data and user states.
This might mean fundamentally different interfaces for the same feature across devices, united by the same underlying capabilities and information architecture.
Invest According to Value, Not Just Traffic
When allocating design and development resources, consider not just where your traffic comes from, but where value is created. If 60% of your traffic is mobile but 70% of your revenue comes from desktop, your resource allocation should reflect that reality.
This might mean investing more in desktop experiences even in a mobile-dominated traffic landscape.
Test in Real Contexts, Not Just Screen Sizes
Move beyond device testing to context testing. How does your mobile experience perform in bright sunlight with spotty connectivity? How does your desktop experience work for users with multiple monitors or accessibility needs?
This contextual testing reveals issues that device-centric testing misses.
“The most successful digital experiences in 2025 aren’t those that prioritize one device over another—they’re those that understand and adapt to the actual contexts in which people use them.” — Digital Strategy Director
Practical Guidelines for WordPress Sites
If you’re managing a WordPress site, here are practical steps to implement a more balanced, context-aware approach:
Theme Selection and Customization
Modern WordPress themes typically claim to be “mobile-first,” but look for ones that also showcase strong desktop-specific features. Pay particular attention to:
- How navigation transforms between devices (not just hamburger menus everywhere)
- Whether desktop layouts utilize space effectively or just stretch mobile layouts
- Support for advanced interactions on larger screens (hover states, tooltips, etc.)
Consider using theme builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder or Divi that allow you to create significantly different layouts for different device sizes, not just responsive variations of the same layout.
Plugin Considerations
Many WordPress plugins default to mobile-optimized interfaces that can feel limited on desktop. Look for:
- Form builders that adapt to screen size (Gravity Forms, Formidable)
- E-commerce plugins with device-specific checkout experiences (WooCommerce with appropriate extensions)
- Gallery and media plugins that utilize available space on larger screens
Be willing to customize plugin outputs for different device contexts, even if it requires additional development resources.
Performance Optimization
WordPress sites often struggle with performance, but context-aware optimization can help:
- Use adaptive image solutions that deliver appropriate resolutions for each device
- Consider conditional loading of scripts and features based on device capability
- Implement critical CSS paths differently for mobile and desktop experiences
- Utilize caching strategies appropriate to different connection types
Services like managed WordPress hosting can help implement many of these optimizations automatically.
Analytics and Testing
Standard WordPress analytics often focus on basic metrics across devices. Enhance your insights with:
- Segmented conversion tracking by device type and screen size
- User journey mapping across devices (using appropriate cookies or user accounts)
- Heat mapping and session recording tools that highlight device-specific behavior patterns
- A/B testing capabilities that can target specific device contexts
These enhanced analytics will reveal whether your balanced approach is actually delivering results.
Conclusion
The mobile-first paradigm served an important purpose in forcing the industry to take smaller screens seriously. It corrected an imbalance that needed addressing. But like many corrective movements, it has sometimes overcorrected, creating a new imbalance in the opposite direction.
In 2025, the most successful digital experiences aren’t dogmatically mobile-first or desktop-first—they’re context-aware and user-centered. They recognize that different devices serve different purposes in users’ lives and optimize accordingly.
For many businesses, especially those with complex products, services, or purchasing journeys, this means acknowledging the continuing importance of the desktop experience. It means investing appropriate resources in making desktop interactions not just functional scaled-up versions of mobile views, but truly optimized experiences that take advantage of the unique capabilities larger screens provide.
The future belongs to multi-context design—an approach that respects each environment on its own terms and creates seamless connections between them.
So the next time someone insists “we have to be mobile-first,” perhaps the better response isn’t to argue for desktop-first instead, but to ask: “What context matters most for this specific user need, and how do we design appropriately for all the contexts that matter?”
That’s the question that leads to truly effective design in our multi-device world.