Responsive Web Design is most important nowadays, here are the top 5 tips to make web design fully responsive. Those days are gone when you would only have to design for a single desktop screen. With the evolvement of technologies and the expansion of mobile websites, website designers have to re-evaluate how their websites are displayed on various devices.
Mobile devices have officially taken over desktops. Think about it, on your day off, which device do you spend more time on? Desktop or mobile?. So with the mobile devices taking over, having a responsive web design is more important than ever.
Responsive design doesn’t only offer a better user experience. It also encourages a better appeal for your website. With a simpler layout, content optimization, and better typography, your website can look better and also be more responsive.
If you’re a developer and you’re looking for ways to make your website more responsive, you’ve come to the right place. Below I’ve rounded the top 5 tips that you can follow to create a responsive website design.
Before I move on to the tips, let’s understand what responsive web design is.
Let's discuss every step in details but before discussing the responsive web design we need to know, What is responsive web design?
Responsive web design allows your code and design to effectively and flawlessly respond to the size of various devices. It gives you a good viewing and usability experience whether you’re using a 4-inch Android Device, a 20-inch display, or your iPad mini. Have a look at the image below.
Like it was mentioned above, responsive web designing is the process of re-arranging the layout of your site in such a way that important information can be presented to users on all kinds of devices. When designing a website, it is up to the designer to choose between a fixed or a fluid grid-based design layout.
As technology is evolving, touchscreens are becoming more common. These days, even laptops are built with touchscreens. This means that if you want your website to be responsive, you will have to design it for both mouse and touchscreens.
When you start designing your website for responsive, it doesn’t mean that you have to start replicating your website from one device to another. Because your aim is to provide better user experience, you will have to consider leaving out some elements for screens of smaller sizes.
If you start designing your website without a clear idea of its content structure, it’s sort of like purchasing a frame before you even start making your painting. Before you head on to designing your website, it’s essential that you have a clear idea of how you want your content to be organized.
Images play a major role in your website’s design. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures are the essential elements of your website that can help you make an instant emotional connection with your visitors. This is why it’s crucial that your images be optimized for your website. It may sound easy, but image sizing can actually be one of the most challenging aspects of responsive website design.
If I open a website on my mobile and it takes too long to load, the content has been cropped, and I just have a hard time using it, I instantly hit the cross button and start looking for a better website. I honestly start wishing that Google wouldn’t show these websites in my search results (thankfully, Google is starting to take ‘responsiveness’ into consideration when ranking websites).
So all in all, responsive web designs have changes the websites for the overall good. Responsive website designs have led us to strip away unnecessary images, content, and graphics that we don’t need. Now your websites can look and function flawlessly on screens of all types and sizes.
Rameeza Yasin is a Digital Marketing Executive for Appverticals, a company in Dallas. Her expert writing skills enable her to convert complex information, into content that anyone can read. She has a demonstrative history of technical writing and working in the information technology and services industry.
Mobile devices have officially taken over desktops. Think about it, on your day off, which device do you spend more time on? Desktop or mobile?. So with the mobile devices taking over, having a responsive web design is more important than ever.
Responsive design doesn’t only offer a better user experience. It also encourages a better appeal for your website. With a simpler layout, content optimization, and better typography, your website can look better and also be more responsive.
If you’re a developer and you’re looking for ways to make your website more responsive, you’ve come to the right place. Below I’ve rounded the top 5 tips that you can follow to create a responsive website design.
5 Tips for a Responsive Web Design
Before I move on to the tips, let’s understand what responsive web design is.
- What Is a Responsive Web Design?
- Use Fluid Grids
- Touchscreens are a Must
- Optimize the Elements to Include on The Smaller Screens
- Content Placement and Formatting
- Focus on Image Sizing
- Wrapping Up
Let's discuss every step in details but before discussing the responsive web design we need to know, What is responsive web design?
What Is a Responsive Web Design?
Responsive web design allows your code and design to effectively and flawlessly respond to the size of various devices. It gives you a good viewing and usability experience whether you’re using a 4-inch Android Device, a 20-inch display, or your iPad mini. Have a look at the image below.
The primary aim of responsive web design is to provide a good user experience across multiple devices. The layout may look slightly different, but, the overall content and design remain exactly the same.
Now that you understand what a responsive web design in. Now let’s move on to understanding how you can implement a responsive website design.
Now that you understand what a responsive web design in. Now let’s move on to understanding how you can implement a responsive website design.
Use Fluid Grids
Like it was mentioned above, responsive web designing is the process of re-arranging the layout of your site in such a way that important information can be presented to users on all kinds of devices. When designing a website, it is up to the designer to choose between a fixed or a fluid grid-based design layout.
If you don’t already know, fluid grids conform to the size of their containing elements, in other words, they transform themselves to fit in every environment. This means that no matter what kind of screen a user is using, the content will automatically adjust itself and minimal adjustments will be needed from the designer’s end.
If you think about it, mobile devices are getting smaller in size and desktop monitors are getting wider (with higher resolution). So evidently, you won’t be able to plan for smaller devices. You can adjust the maximum width on fluid grids and they will still be able to work on larger screens after the percentage-based calculations.
Touchscreens are a Must
As technology is evolving, touchscreens are becoming more common. These days, even laptops are built with touchscreens. This means that if you want your website to be responsive, you will have to design it for both mouse and touchscreens.
So let’s suppose you build a company website that shows their services in a drop-down menu on a desktop. In order to make it responsive, you will have to consider designing this menu so that it is larger and easier to press with your fingertips on all the touchscreen devices. Furthermore, don’t forget that tiny elements and tabs are very hard to touch on a smartphone, so you will have to incorporate images, icons, and call to action buttons that can be properly displayed on all types of screens.
Optimize the Elements to Include on The Smaller Screens
When you start designing your website for responsive, it doesn’t mean that you have to start replicating your website from one device to another. Because your aim is to provide better user experience, you will have to consider leaving out some elements for screens of smaller sizes.
For example, when you design your website, you may choose to adopt condense menus and navigational buttons so that they can be opened with a single tap. On a larger screen, this menu can expand, but for a smaller screen, it will be necessary that it opens on an entirely new window (a smaller window for the menu). Similarly, you can make some more changes and even choose to leave out certain elements by implementing the changes on your website’s CSS and other codes.
It will take some time, but the effort will be worth it.
It will take some time, but the effort will be worth it.
Content Placement and Formatting
If you start designing your website without a clear idea of its content structure, it’s sort of like purchasing a frame before you even start making your painting. Before you head on to designing your website, it’s essential that you have a clear idea of how you want your content to be organized.
If your content is too big, has bad formatting, bad typography, and it overlaps the other elements of your site, then you will have a major readability issue. Content organization is important if you want your website to be readable and user-friendly. Furthermore, content is how you convey the story that you’re trying to tell your audience. So it’s important that you create a list of all the messages that you wish to convey to your visitors. Decide the placement of your content so that it is engaging, easily understood, and easy to navigate.
Focus on Image Sizing
Images play a major role in your website’s design. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures are the essential elements of your website that can help you make an instant emotional connection with your visitors. This is why it’s crucial that your images be optimized for your website. It may sound easy, but image sizing can actually be one of the most challenging aspects of responsive website design.
For responsiveness, you will have to start creating certain rules on your CSS that will automatically determine how an image will be handled in various screen sizes. Whether it will be resized, kept at full width, or entirely removed.
Wrapping Up
If I open a website on my mobile and it takes too long to load, the content has been cropped, and I just have a hard time using it, I instantly hit the cross button and start looking for a better website. I honestly start wishing that Google wouldn’t show these websites in my search results (thankfully, Google is starting to take ‘responsiveness’ into consideration when ranking websites).
So all in all, responsive web designs have changes the websites for the overall good. Responsive website designs have led us to strip away unnecessary images, content, and graphics that we don’t need. Now your websites can look and function flawlessly on screens of all types and sizes.
About The Author
Rameeza Yasin is a Digital Marketing Executive for Appverticals, a company in Dallas. Her expert writing skills enable her to convert complex information, into content that anyone can read. She has a demonstrative history of technical writing and working in the information technology and services industry.
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