November 18, 2022
The Internet now is not only accessed through Personal Computers. The modern-day user expects to be able to access any website with a vast range of devices. They want a similar experience while accessing the website using a mobile phone, iPad, Tablet, Laptop, PC and TV, or any other large projection device. Also, access devices with new sizes and resolutions are being rolled out regularly making it challenging for the designers of the web to ensure a similar experience across the devices.
Responsive web design refers to a design strategy that creates websites that work well for mobile, tablet, and desktop devices. It ensures that your site responds to the device’s capabilities through which it is viewed perfectly to let users enjoy an excellent visual experience.
For ease of understanding, imagine the way water takes the shape of the container it is filled in. Similarly, the idea behind responsive web design is to build a flexible website whose content and design fits the device that the user is accessing through. When necessary, they shrink to perfectly fit into smaller spaces or, on the contrary, stretch to occupy a bigger area. Everything scales up or down automatically to match the device.
Flexible grids are foundational elements of responsive design. All assets such as images and text adapt to various screen sizes & resolutions using CSS media queries.
How to create a Responsive Website?
Start with a Fluid Grid
A fluid grid positions and sets web elements on a site in proportion to the screen size it is displayed on. Instead of making things in a single, specific size set in pixels, elements on a fluid grid will respond and resize to fit the size of the screen. A fluid grid is divided into columns; heights and widths are scaled, not set to fixed dimensions. The proportions of text and elements depend on the screen size.
Set Appropriate Responsive Breakpoints
In responsive design, a breakpoint is the “point” at which a website’s content and design will adapt in a certain way in order to provide the best possible user experience. Every website is accessed via devices with different screen sizes and resolutions. The web pages have to render perfectly across each screen size. While doing so, the content or images cannot be distorted, cut out, or obscured. To achieve this, developers have to use responsive breakpoints (also called CSS breakpoints or media query breakpoints). These are points defined in the code. Website content responds to these points and adjusts itself to the screen size to display the accurate layout.
Keep touchscreens in consideration
While doing responsive web design, keep all considerations for touchscreens wide open. Now, most mobile devices including mobile phones, tablets, and even some laptops are equipped with touch screens. A responsive website will have to calibrate itself for being accessed via touchscreens. Accordingly, the touch targets like menu items and action buttons should be large enough to be pressed with fingertips.
Responsive Image and Video
The images should move and scale along with a flexible grid, container, or column instead of overflowing it. While doing so they should also maintain their sharpness and quality. Depending on the viewport size or screen density, you can choose the appropriate web-optimized picture from the collection and show it to the users by using the srcset attribute in. Alternatively, image() function can be used that allows cropping the picture differently, depending on the CSS viewport width size. Using aspect ratio through CSS, responsiveness in videos can be created.
Create Responsive Typography
Use well-supported browser features, basic algebra, and automation through Sass to create scalable typography. Making the most out of simple mathematical formulas, aka linear equation definition and CSS calc(), you can easily bring to life the trendline equation and ensure typography smoothly scales with your layout. Another method is to use viewport units. These relatively new CSS features are incredibly handy. Just set the font size in viewport units and let the browser do its job.
Test Responsiveness Across Devices
Once you are ready with a responsive design it must be tested on multiple real browsers and devices. You may like to test them with the devices available to you and for addressing a wider range you may use online responsive design checker tools available. Such tools offer responsive checking on the latest mobile devices such as iPhone X, Galaxy Note 10, iPhone 8 Plus, and more.
Advantages of Responsive Web Design
Improves SEO: Google has changed its search algorithms to “Mobile- first index”. According to recent statistics, responsive sites get a ranking boost.
Easy to Maintain: Earlier there were multiple versions of a website to fit different screen sizes. A responsive website is a single website that can be viewed seamlessly on devices with different screen sizes making it easy to maintain.
Enhanced Usability Experience: Responsive sites are engaging sites and thus these are easy to navigate and use.
Making your website responsive helps you to serve a wider range of users possessing a variety of access devices. Keep in mind that users expect any website to be perfectly complementary with every single device they own – desktop, tablet, or mobile. If a website’s responsive design does not align with a certain device resolution (especially a commonly used device), the site is at risk of missing out on a segment of its target audience.
