Responsive Web design has been an emerging term throughout 2012, is certainly a hot topic within the digital design community, and we are now seeing it take small steps towards becoming accepted as standard practice. So, what exactly is Responsive Web design all about?
Put simply Responsive Web design is all about the user experience. It’s about designing a website that responsively changes to suit the device the customer is using. Now, as we see the number of new devices and new resolutions increase every day it can be extremely frustrating for both marketing and design teams alike, to not only stay abreast of all the new requirements, but to also find themselves developing seperate versions of the one campaign site for desktop, mobile and tablet devices. Responsive Web design is a collection of ideas and techniques that suggest that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on device, screen size, and orientation.
In a nutshell one website that is flexible and delivers a consistent customer experience on laptops, tablet devices, mobile phones or desktop computers.
The concept of Responsive Web Design was established by Boston based web designer and developer, Ethan Marcotte, and his article on this topic discusses the ideas that form the thinking behind Responsive Web design. He has also written a book on this topic called “Responsive Web Design”. The practice consists of a mix of flexible images, fluid grids, and intelligent use of CSS media queries. The result eliminates the need for customised solutions for each device or resolution out there, or for the user to download an app, or be re-directed to another version of your site. I.e. it makes your site, your online brand presence consistently accessible to everyone regardless of the technology they are using.
It also streamlines managing and implementing site or design changes, as they only need to be applied to a single template. With more people browsing on-the-go, mobile networks increasing in speed and the mass uptake of tablets, Responsive Web design represents the future of digital design for many businesses that require a robust online presence, and is definitely experiencing growth in it’s adoption with big players like Microsoft and some financial institutions employing this way of developing sites. With its numerous advantages, marketers and business owners should start to give serious consideration to implementing Responsive Web design for future digital campaigns or site overhauls. Got any questions or comments on Responsive Web Design? Let us know in the box below or check out Media Queries, a collection of inspirational websites using Responsive Web design.