Basically, responsive web design is a term for websites that ‘automatically’ adapt their layout to the platform it is being viewed on. So on large desktop screens, small mobile screens, or touch screens on tablets, the website looks roughly the same in design, but is actually crafted for optimal display on those devices.
Responsive web design was definitely a trending topic in the web design world in 2012. More and more businesses need a website that can be browsed on a mobile device, because 70% of all mobile searches happen on smartphones or tablets these days.
In this article we answer a few common questions that people ask about this responsive web design.
1. Why does my current website look weird on mobile phones?
Unless you have specifically asked your web designer for a website that suits all platforms, your current website will be most likely just be designed for regular computer screens. In that case your website isn’t showing up properly on smartphones and tablets and may also be hard to navigate on those devices. People will have to wait long for the page to download, will have to scroll and pan a lot and may not be able to view all the content. As a result they’ll get fed up, and leave. If they do, they probably never come back.
Some coding, such as Javascript, won’t even display properly on basic mobile phones, because the phones don’t understand the code. If you have a website with animations or slides you should also know that Apple doesn’t allow Flash to run on their iOS operating system. Flash websites and animations are useless on iPad’s, iPhone’s and iPod’s.
2. What can responsive design do for my website?
There are a few ways to improve the way your website shows up on mobile phones and one method is making the whole website ‘responsive’. This means that every time someone on a mobile device visits your website, they get presented with a simplified version of your website, which is optimised for display on small screens and will loaded faster. The navigation will also be made simpler, for easy viewing on small screens.
3. How do responsive websites work?
So-called ‘media queries’ in the coding of responsive websites make sure the page uses a different style rule on each device. The style sheet is called a CSS, and it ‘tells’ the website whether it is being viewed on a smartphone, a tablet or a laptop. The CSS then ‘orders’ the website to change certain displays, so the pages and images load faster and fit the screen better. In order to achieve this, the page layout, the image sizes, the website menu, and the content options all need to be prepared for small screen viewing.
4. Does SaedX offer responsive websites?
Yes. At SaedX we can offer RWD, which is Responsive Web Design. We can recode and restyle your existing website to make it adapt to all platforms. We will craft the website and its contents to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices.
5. Can’t I just make my current website suitable for mobile phones instead of paying for a responsive design?
Yes, you can. If you want to service both consumer groups (the ones that browse on a laptop or PC and the ones that browse on the go) but don’t want to redesign your existing website, we can develop a mobile website that co-exists with you current website. The mobile website then gets ‘switched on’ as soon as people view your website on a mobile device.
