Responsive Website Design.21st Jan 2013

What is responsive website site? In a nutshell it's a way of making a website look perfect on a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet or smartphone - without having to make it 4 times.

The problem.

How many times have you been to a website on your mobile phone and been redirected to a mobile version which, quite frankly, is useless. It's got tiny images, missing over half the useful information and then you need to figure out how to navigate a site that you've been using every day - and most annoyingly you are often taken away from the page you were originally looking for.

When having your website developed you have to remember - there are now two different versions of your site. This means after you've had your main website built, it's back to the drawing board for the mobile version - and after all that the mobile version doesn't even sell you business like the desktop version. This is not cost effective and your management time can considerably increase as the same changes need to be made twice.

The answer? Responsive.

With a responsive site this isn't the case. The same content & images are used no matter what device you are using. The layout is simply changed to make it look best on the screen you're looking at. The images are scaled to fit automatically the text size and style is changed to make it more readable.

Your site is coded once the images are touched up and put into place once - then using what can only be described as magic, it's made responsive. Elements of your website are hidden, changed or moved using the very same stylesheets that made you original site look like it does.

Once complete, you have hundreds of little changes being made automatically to your site so it looks perfect no matter the device you are using to browse. Of course this takes a bit longer than making just 1 version, but it considerably less than the time taken to create a half-baked second version.

This very site uses responsive design. Take a look on your phone or tablet or computer and re-read this very line - interesting isn't it. Responsive design isn't just about design; it's about tailoring the user experience to the device the user is using your site on - without the need to re-code anything.