What Is Responsive Web Design?

By Author: Newpath WEB
Total Articles: 9
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Responsive web design is the approach that when a user’s behaviour and environment changes, the website responds and adapts. For example, if a user were to switch from their laptop to an iPad, the website should immedietly adapt and accommodate the new resolution, image size and scripting abilities. What a responsive web design eliminates is the need for a different design and development process for new gadgets on the market.

Responsive design demands an abstract way of thinking. Some ideas to help websites become responsive are already being practiced, they are: fluid layouts, media queries, and scripts that can reformat web pages and mark-up effortlessly.

The surge of responsive web design started in mid-2012 when Google expressed it as the best strategy for smartphone-optimised websites. Gradually businesses have adopted the responsive design approach. Its rise has coincided with that of mobile phone use, which is nearing 2 billion mobile users.

Is responsive web design for your business?

The best way to decide if a responsive web design is best for your business is to consider how your audience ...
... is going to receive the changes and how they usually interact with your site. If they are an audience that enjoys interacting and searching your site, a responsive web design will be acceptable. If they’re happy with the site as it is, and the results are there, changing the site may put a dent in your business’ relationship with the audience.

Lets consider the advantages of responsive design:

1.Responsive design means time and long-term money savings: despite it not being the cheapest approach, in the long run it saves a good amount. It saves time used on making a site compatible to other devices by being a template that can adapt to support any device, without any serious changes to the site itself

2.Only a single version of the basic web code for responsive web design is needed, which results in time being saved once its implemented

3.Also the obvious advantage, it takes the elements of a PC or desktop page and reorders them into tablet and smartphone-friendly schemes

Although responsive web design has strong support and many benefits, consider its limitations before you fully commit:

1.Although responsive design is a powerful approach for your business website, it doesn’t always go right. It has drawn some fire for not being able to support specific advertising technologies

2.Responsive web design isn’t for everybody – your business may not suit the responsive approach. You may also not have the resources to successfully implement it

3.Images and videos can cause problems. If a website is bit too video/image heavy, the pages can appear messy or not work at all

If you’d like more information on responsive web design, head to http://www.newpathweb.com.au/