Responsive Web Design with Online99
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned web professional, creating responsive designs can be confusing at first, mostly because of the radical change in thinking that’s required. As time goes on, responsive web design is drifting away from the pool of passing fads and rapidly entering the realm of standard practice.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a Web Design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling-across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors). A site designed with Responsive web design adapts the layout to the viewing environment.
Almost every new client these days wants a mobile version of their website. It’s practically essential after all: one design for the BlackBerry, another for the iPhone, the iPad, netbook, Kindle – and all screen resolutions must be compatible, too. In the next five years, we’ll likely need to design for a number of additional inventions. When will the madness stop? It won’t, of course.
But responsive Web design is not only about adjustable screen resolutions and automatically resizable images, but rather about a whole new way of thinking about design.
Why do you need to consider Responsive web design?
Each day, the number of devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site grows. Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come. An example of a Responsive web design is here
When To Use It?
Things to Consider
• Time & Money
• Browser Support
• Performance
• Content
• Website vs. Web App
Best Practices
• Content Check
• Start Small (Mobile First)
• Exit Photoshop, Enter Browser
• Make It Modular
• Always Be Optimizing
• *Best practices still emerging!
Given the rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones – and the fact that users currently seem to prefer reading their news on the mobile web rather than in apps – I think it’s inevitable that 2013 will be the year that responsive design takes off.
