Responsive web design has become more popular than ever. The fact is, half of the top websites in the received mobile traffic in 2015. That’s a significant percentage. But how does responsive design differ from a standard website? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of a mobile-friendly website? In this article, you’ll learn about the techniques and costs, and guidelines for implementing responsive web design for your website.
Techniques:
The fundamentals of responsive web design are fluid grids, flexible media, and media queries. Fluid grids define width in percentage values rather than pixels, a technique that is supported by CSS. Because modern web browsers interpret styles in percentage values, the fluid grids overcome the limitations of pixels and inherit the properties of a grid layout. Similarly, media queries and flexible grids enable designers to create fluid layouts that automatically adapt to different monitor resolutions.
Costs:
Responsive web design is one of the best ways to ensure that your website adapts to various device sizes. As the two experience styles are inextricably linked, any changes made to your desktop site need to be tested on various mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. As a result, it is likely to cost more than a separate mobile site since you will need to create double the visual assets and content for both devices.
Guidelines:
There are some general guidelines for designing websites to meet the latest standards of usability and compatibility. Responsive web design is one such standard. This standard aims to make your website work on a wide variety of devices, including mobile phones and tablets. The goal is to give the same experience to desktop users and mobile visitors. But responsive web design is much more than just rendering. It must be intuitive and work across all platforms.
Examples:
While there are several examples of responsive web design, there are a few things to consider. First of all, responsive web design uses scalable images and adjustable layouts. Depending on the device being used, the layout needs to be able to adjust to fit its new size. For example, fluid grids will change the size of the content as needed. This design technique can be tricky to master, but a few free tools are available to help.