Responsive websites – what is it all about?

25 Jul Responsive websites – what is it all about?

What is a responsive website or a responsive design?

We hear a lot of chatter on the changing web and need for creating responsive designs for websites and apps. A lot of jargon gets thrown up about fluid designs, cross platform adaptability and so on. With all this hype around the “responsive design” idea, everyone see in a rush for a responsive website. But what does it mean for your business that already has a well designed and efficient website developed few years ago? This post is about “what’s needed” to help you understand and decide why you need to go responsive.

Why should you shift your website to a responsive design?

Lets get to the brass tacks, first the definition – responsive web designing is a way to develop flexible web designs for all viewports and platforms. In simple terms, one design and code that fits for all (or most) computers and mobile devices. Unlike, the times when earth was considered to be flat and there were only couple of browsers running on Windows PCs, today your website is being accessed from a large number of browsers having variety of screen sizes and operating systems. Visitors to your website could be using widescreen desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, running different versions Windows, Mac, iOS, Android etc.

Most websites were earlier designed with a fixed 960 pixels width that worked on most desktops. But on a smartphone or tablet these websites opened with a big scroll or squeezed out image. Or on 21” – 30” displays of desktop computers, where your website opens with big empty spaces on either sides. Not a nice way to greet your visitors.

A quick review of your website analytics data would show you the visitor’s composition on your website. Here is a typical example from Google Analytics

What needs to be done to convert your website to a responsive design?

The solution is creating responsive design based website built with HTML5 and CSS3. A responsive design implementation essentially works on a flexible grid layout using flexible images and some CSS to handle different viewport (read screen) sizes. This alters the process of web designing as first one needs to design the view for smallest screen and then keep adding more for displaying on bigger screens. This ensures optimum level of user experience at all platforms and devices.

HTML5 provides great flexibility than its predecessor in creating lean code for limited bandwidth and viewport size for mobile devices, whereas CSS3 helps with creating most design components through piece of code instead of storing them as graphic elements. Using Media Queries we are able to use specific CSS for different viewport sizes.

Time is right to move from your old website design to a more responsive universally acceptable design that helps you showcase your content to all your website visitors without a hassle. To know more on what you need to get your website migrated, get in touch with us