A Summary of Responsive Web Design

If you’re not a web designer or developer, there’s a chance that you’ve never heard of responsive web design. The Wikipedia entry for Responsive Web Design starts off with this definition:

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web design in which a designer intends to provide an optimal viewing experience — easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling — across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

RWD Wikipedia Article

Another way to define RWD is that it makes your website easy to use on desktops, tablets, and phones. Simple as that. Going responsive is fast becoming an industry-standard, not a fancy add-on.

An Estimated 20% of all US Web Traffic is From Mobile Devices

Let’s digest that for a moment. Out of every 100 visitors to your website, there are potentially 20 people using something like an iPad or an Android smart phone. Odds are, your website wasn’t originally designed for these devices. Maybe everything looks small, you have to pinch and zoom to be able to read anything, the navigation is awkward, etc. Fixing these issues does your web presence a huge favor — it says to your visitors, “I want your experience while viewing my website to be great”. It might be a relatively small gesture, but its becoming more and more important.

Frustrating Experiences Stay With Us

It’s been reported that 25% of people are “far more likely” to share negative customer service experiences over positive ones.  The takeaway message here is that even though not every person who uses your newly responsive website will appreciate these features, they are more likely to notice if they have trouble using your site. Avoid this issue by planning ahead and making your site responsive.

In the case of responsive websites, the challenge is to allow the design to get out of its own way, allowing your message to remain clear without frustrating distractions. Creating intuitive navigation options, layouts that don’t require tons of scrolling, and readable font sizes are all aspects of responsive design that mobile users will benefit from greatly, even if they don’t know it.

Responsive Design is Here to Stay

This isn’t a fad. Mobile devices are here to stay. At this stage in the game, you would be hard-pressed to find a reason to create a website that doesn’t take some level of responsiveness into consideration. Not only are website developers integrating responsive design into their everyday workflow — bringing costs down as the learning curve lessens — but its simply bad business to not make it as easy as possible for mobile visitors to navigate your website. Internet users are increasingly comfortable buying products online with mobile tablets and even phones. As mobile data traffic increases, so does the chance that your website will be under the scrutiny of increasingly sophisitaced mobile device users. It all comes down to this — a usable website is now an expectation, no matter what device we are using.

Plan for Mobile Device Growth Now

According to a recent Ericsson mobile report, mobile data traffic for smartphones will grow about 20 times by the end of 2017. That simply means that more people will have phones and more people will use those phones to browse the Internet. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, but what we do with this surge in mobile device growth becomes more and more important. It seems like there are two basic options: design websites that are a pleasure to use across a wide range of devices, or stick with a design that provides just an average mobile device experience. This second option just doesn’t seem so realistic anymore.