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Why is Responsive Web Design Important?

The onslaught of technological innovations over the last decade posed an enormous challenge to web developers in adapting to the various devices, platforms and browsers. Every day we see a new smart phone, tablet and notebooks being launched and this mad invasion of Technology is only meant to grow bigger by the day.

Why Responsive Web Design (RWD)?

The advent of smart phones and tablets has made Web viewing experience exceedingly dynamic. While this is good news for the users, it is a challenge for the developers to adapt to the various resolutions and interfaces and provide an optimal viewing experience. Customizing your site for every platform and browser is not feasible.

The Responsive Web Design approach stemmed from the concept of Responsive Architectural Design and was devised by Ethan Marcotte in an article, ‘A List Apart’ in May 2010.

RWD Concept.

Responsive Web Design is an approach of designing websites to provide an easy and efficient user experience across various screen sizes, browsers and devices. The idea is to make reading and navigation hassle free and effective for the user as they switch from, say a Mac Book to an Android tablet or smart phone.

This is made possible using,

  • Fluid, proportion based grids and layouts
  • Flexible images &
  • CSS3 media queries

The fluid grids and layout concept enables resizing to be in relative units and proportions, as compared to fixed units. The flexible images resize the images as proportionate to the screen size. The image size is set to a maximum width of 100 % of the screen, so when the screen becomes narrower than the maximum width, the image resizes accordingly. CSS3 media queries support all media types including max-width, colour and orientation which help resizing in landscape and portrait modes as well.

Relevance and future of Responsive Web Design.

Before the dominance of smart phones and tablets, web designers created mobile versions of their websites to be used on a mobile browser. But over the last decade, the expectations of people from a desktop and a mobile browser have changed. With super efficient smart phones, tablets, tablets, notepads and laptops thronging the market everyday, RWD appears to be the future of web design. It’s already recommended by Google and is looked at as the best practice in the industry today.

For Companies with SEO as a digital marketing strategy, a responsive website will be difficult to do without. The amount of people that browse the internet on phones and iPads are much greater than the Desktop users today and having a separate mobile site poses many challenges in terms of user expectations and platform adaptability. With a Responsive Design, you can have one website, provide a great user experience across all the devices. This also makes it easier for Organizations to manage their SEO campaigns. The flock of gadgets that’s invading the market today is not meant to disappear in the future, but will only multiply posing bigger challenges for Web Designers. This is why Responsive Web Design is believed to stay and find its place as a standard design practice in the future.

Think Big Online is a full service Online Marketing Firm Sydney that services clients worldwide. The team of web design professionals understand the psychology of conversion, and how to craft designs which compel customers to buy. Find out more about the company’s web design services at http://www.thinkbigonline.com/ecommerce-website-design/.

 

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