Design your way

Tablets, mobile phones, and even lighter, easy-to-carry laptops are in the hands of more and more people as time passes and technology advances.

Additionally, it’s imperative that companies design their platforms to work across all types of devices, no matter the screen size or shape, through the use of responsive design.

So, what is responsive web design? By definition, responsive web design is a system whereby the desired website responds to the particular device on which it is being displayed in order to show the site with full visible content.

From small mobile smartphones to tablets and laptops, responsive web design allows optimal viewing on any device.

By using flexible grids and creative styling, it is possible to display the website’s content in a format that suits the width and configuration of any user device.

To help determine how the layout of a website will appear, breakpoints are used in conjunction with the design process.

Generally speaking, breakpoints are the specific points where the site’s content begins to provide the best visual layout in the way the users wish to use the content.

There are two design configurations: one design is used above the breakpoint and the other is used below the breakpoint. Although many elements come into play, breakpoints are usually based on the browsers width.

Responsive web design and user experience

Much like solving a jigsaw puzzle, responsive web design requires movement of various elements around the page somewhat changing the initial design.

Organizing elements to fit can be a great challenge with responsive design as larger pages and their elements will need to essentially shrink to fit on the more narrow platform of a mobile device.

There are times when the opposite is true and smaller pages will need to expand to fit on larger desktops so that the page isn’t lost on a huge, empty screen. It’s increasingly important for design and development teams to work together so there is a usable experience across all devices and resolution characteristics.

Moving elements around the page can cause a very different effect for the user. Elements may look completely different from one device to the other.

Therefore, it’s crucial for design and development teams to ensure an optimal experience for the user by making sure all elements work in conjunction with each other and that they transpose across devices.

Responsive design systems, such as Bootstrap or Foundation, are often very helpful when designing a website for optimal responsive design.

However, site and user functionality are more important than how it works in general. It’s important to make sure the framework is best for the particular website design.

The best way to perfect the design and guarantee success is through usability testing across various platforms. What works and looks prefect on a desktop may not translate to a small smartphone.

On the other hand, designing for the smaller platforms like a smartphone or tablet may not bode well with regard to a huge desktop. It’s ultimately best to test the elements with all available platforms to ensure the highest quality and end result for all users.

RWD websites don’t automatically deliver rich UX, you can still screw up

Responsive web design goes hand in hand with adequate accessibility.

Without a doubt, having a website that is built around responsive design does not guarantee that all points are fully accessible to the user.

Color contrast and readability are two areas of concern with regard to accessibility since neither of these elements have anything to do with a successful responsive web design.

However, these elements are extremely important to the user and, therefore, should be of concern during design and development.

It’s no secret that visual effects of any website are important for user satisfaction. The site must be visually appealing and give the user a desire to work with it.

Even if the site is one of the most responsively designed out there it can still have accessibility issues if the data is not visually appealing and workable.

Additionally, if proper color techniques and contrasts are not employed, the many users out there with color-deficient vision will be greatly affected. Without the use of ARIA to define interactions, vital support may not be allowed and access to the site will be interrupted.

Ultimately, responsive design is about how the content of the site looks and feels to the user, and the ability to interact and access all information on the site plays a vital role in its success.

No matter the device used to access it, users should have a good experience with regard to the ability to access all elements of the site.

Always think about your users

In the end, the most important element for the development team to consider is the user.

It’s very easy to lose site of the user when writing code and getting caught up in the technical elements. However, development teams must remember for whom their work is actually being performed.

It’s extremely important for all data that has been gathered throughout the process to be passed on to the development team so that they have the ability to make decisions about users and their needs.

It’s important for teams to have the flexibility to make changes, and having background on the users will aid them in this process.

One example is the decision to disable pinch zoom for devices with this capability. Without proper information and user background, developers may decide to exclude this feature.

However, there may be a market for pinch zoom and not having it would exclude visually impaired users from interacting with the final product. It’s important for developers to have all information on the target user group and then to take a giant leap back in order to get a good, broad-scale look at user requirements.

Reduce load time

Several things can slow down response time for sites and it’s important with responsive web design to reduce load time as much as possible.

Every single HTTP request and server response represents one round-trip on the network which can take several seconds to complete from start to finish.

A website can require multiple HTTP requests before any content is viewed by the user.

However, there are several ways to reduce unnecessary requests such as consolidating CSS and JavaScript files, in-lining small images, leveraging caching features, and using CDNs.

It’s important to remember, the bigger the website the longer it will take to render a result for the user. For responsive web design sites, images are a definite problem.

Therefore, it’s important to use methods to eliminate issues images can cause by adjusting image size and format, managing cache more effectively, compressing files when appropriate, and removing obstacles such as white space, comments, and image metadata.

In addition, there are automated solutions to aid in managing image resolution that will help to deliver images that are appropriate for the website.

Remove a certain type of social media buttons

Social media buttons may likely be the reason for slow response times when loading responsive design sites on mobile devices particularly when there is a slower cellular connection.

Since bandwidth and latency are typically at a premium on smaller, mobile-type devices, response can build up over cellular connections and cause serious problems.

Therefore, it’s important to remove excessive fluff on a site such as those pesky TWEET and LIKE buttons in an effort to decrease the number of obstacles the data much run through before producing an end result for the user.

As always: Test and then test some more

Once the newly developed site is up and running, it would be a huge mistake to just let the site sit without further testing. It’s crucial to continue to analyze and test the site on a regular basis keeping a sharp eye out for issues that may arise.

A/B and user testing is a great idea to make sure that any issues are handled in a timely manner and that they don’t linger on the site for too long. Website modifications do not have to be huge changes.

Some of the most successful websites have made small, seemingly unimportant changes over the course of several months or even years that, on a whole, add up to be huge in the end.

It’s vital with regard to website management to insure continuous testing so that proper data may be used to determine when changes are required.

Likewise, keeping up with current technology is crucial and will only increase the site’s usability over time.

As new and improved devices enter the marketplace, responsive web design will make keeping up with future technology easier, but it’s imperative that continual testing take place in order to make sure users are enjoying their experience on the site.

Tools For Testing Responsive Websites

Even though many people are stating that responsive web design is taking more time and money to implement it isn’t at all true. It may be a statement of frustration to try to minimize the importance of RWD and start a movement against it.

Designing for various viewport sizes does take time only when you do it for the first time. After that, it is easier than riding a bicycle. You’ll notice that everything will seem normal and not outrageously new and hard to implement.

A problem that a web designer has always faced is testing the websites that he or she creates and this part of the process has always annoyed us, because we had to make a website for various browsers.

Guess what, with responsive web design, now you have to design for various screen sizes too. Can you handle the pressure? Yes, you can. It’s simple. You just need to have a tool that you can use in these situations.

In this article you will find tools to test responsive websites from which you can choose the one that you consider best.

The Responsinator

Responsinator helps website makers quickly get an indication of how their responsive site will look on the most popular devices. It does not precisely replicate how it will look, for accurate testing always test on the real devices.

Viewport resizer

Viewport resizer is a browser-based tool to test any website’s responsiveness. Just save the bookmarklet, go to the page you want to test, click on your created bookmarklet and check all kinds of screen resolutions of the page.

resizeMyBrowser

RWDdy

Should pop a little div at the top of any page that shows what the site looks like at 320, 640, 980 and 1280px wide. Won’t work on local files, or pages that bust frames.

Responsive Design Bookmarklet

ish

Responsive Design View

Am I Responsive

Responsive Web Design Best Practices

The mobile web has taken off with a boom. It is important for web owners to take this into consideration when designing their websites. Their site must be applicable and easy to use for a myriad of devices.

With the help of responsive web design, web designers are able to create an adaptable viewing from one device to another. There are a variety of grids, layouts, images and CSS media queries that make this possible.

Responsive web design culminates in allowing easy to use navigation, a minimum of browser resizing, scrolling, and panning.

Responsive web design is still in the stages of a new technological advance. There are a few rules you need to pay attention to in order for it to work according to plan.

They include a mobile first design, using breakpoints properly, responsive typography, good navigation, quality and responsiveness of images, attention to content, and frameworks.

Mobile first design

If the designer comes from a mobile first perspective then it allows for a viewing experience that is more universal across the board. It allows for even those from all background to interact with a website.

Those with high-quality devices are on an equal footing with everyone else. A website designer wants to design a website that is applicable to the masses. The designer works hard to make sure that a website runs in such a way to allow even phones with outdated technology to be able to access the website easily and have a good viewing experience.

This design strategy starts from how a website would look on a low technologically advanced phone. Thus, the foundation of the website is made simple and users are able to browse through the site easily and without much hassle.

Once this foundation has been built on a mobile first level, more advanced interfaces and media can be added for those with more technologically advanced equipment.

The idea is to take into account the browsing experience of the low-tech mobile phone and work the way up. It is not necessarily leaving out the more complex media and viewing experiences but having a responsive design that allows for more than one viewing experience.

Most designers work the opposite way by creating an advanced website and thinking about how it will look on a low technologically advanced phone is an after thought and not much time is put into making it easy to use.

Using breakpoints properly

The practice of using breakpoints enhances each user’s experience of viewing a website’s layout. One is forced to realize what the most important information for the viewer to see and start with a simple design.

When looking through different interfaces, a point will come in which the website does not look good. A breakpoint should be added there.

Responsive typography

The fonts of different resolutions must also be accounted for in order to allow the best viewing experience. It needs to be a font that works well when zooming in or out depending on the screen from which it is being viewed.

Without a doubt, it must be easy to read, clean, appealing and have no overlapping. Thus, it must be looked at from a variety of perspectives.

Typography is in the same ballpark as responsive web design. One would not want to choose a font that varies it look from one device to another. In order to have a universal readability, the width of the viewing screen must be taken into consideration.

For example, a desktop computer’s best viewing experience will be at 50-75 characters per line. However on mobile devices, it is only 35-50 characters.

A simplistic font that looks good on a variety of interfaces would be the best choice.

Good navigation

Web designers are careful to put in the time into making sure that the navigation of a website is up to par. The browser’s width is important to this process. The experience should not be dumbed down for those with a larger screen yet it cannot be too wide for those with a smaller screen.

The navigation of a website is a priority for all web designers especially in terms of responsive web design. The ability of ease of navigation and an experience which smooth. Otherwise will get frustrated and may leave the site quickly.

A website’s navigation capabilities must be ideal across the board so that an enjoyable experience is had by the visitors to the website.

Images – Quality and responsiveness

The quality of an image is vital. Whether a low technological device is being used or a state of the art computer, quality matters. For an image of low-quality will not be impressive on either one.

However, the time it takes to download said image must be accounted for and the bandwidth capability of a mobile phone. Thus, a combination of high quality and a low download time will be important.

Images can be the bane of a developer’s design. Due to all the different dimensions the image may be viewed in, making it possible for an image to look good in all of them is a difficult task.

True responsive images are becoming a reality on the web — in pure HTML, without any of the numerous hacks that we’ve gotten used to. The < picture > element and a couple of new attributes for the < img > element will be included in the new versions of the top browsers.

Think about your content too

The design of a responsive website always comes back to the user’s experience. The content should also be thought of in terms of accessibility and ease of reading.

What is the most important information that needs to be seen on the homepage?

Is it clearly written and easy to understand?

The goal and purpose of the website should be attended to right away. This is what the viewer should see the minute the website downloads.

Frameworks can save you a lot of trouble

A CSS framework will depend on the creative capabilities and desires of the website designer. It can save time in terms of developing the website and eliminate some problems before they occur. For example, less debugging is needed since the framework has already been tested and eliminated many across a wide variety of interfaces.

However, learning how to use the framework must be thought of as well. Will the designer be able to understand how to use it easily? Have other desigenrs used this framework and had positive experiences?

Is there the possibility to talk to and ask questions if needed? What are the features of this framework? Finally, do these preferences indeed make the development process quicker and do they serve the purpose of the designer?

There is not one framework that will solve all of your problems. The designer may be able to save some time and avoid some issues that have already been solved by using a framework in which the bugs have already been worked out and other problems have already been eliminated.

This allows for more time to be spent on a responsive web design and making sure that the website looks exactly the way the owner desires it to look on a wide variety of interfaces

Foundation

A Framework for any device, medium, and accessibility. Foundation is a family of responsive front-end frameworks that make it easy to design beautiful responsive websites, apps and emails that look amazing on any device. Foundation is semantic, readable, flexible, and completely customizable.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap makes front-end web development faster and easier. It’s made for folks of all skill levels, devices of all shapes, and projects of all sizes.

Skeleton

You should use Skeleton if you’re embarking on a smaller project or just don’t feel like you need all the utility of larger frameworks. Skeleton only styles a handful of standard HTML elements and includes a grid, but that’s often more than enough to get started.

Pure

Pure is ridiculously tiny. The entire set of modules clocks in at 3.8KB* minified and gzipped. Crafted with mobile devices in mind, it was important to us to keep our file sizes small, and every line of CSS was carefully considered.

Base

Lightweight and minimal code. Spend less time overriding styles and focus more time on creating beautiful website applications.

Responsive web design inspiration

Things are changing in the tech world and the migration of users from PC to tablets or phones adds modifications to the way web sites are designed because web sites have to be optimized for these new platforms.

In the old days, which are not that old, designers would complain about having to make a website compatible with desktop browsers, which is child’s play comparing to the times we are living now.

Nowadays, almost each client you are getting asks for a mobile version of his site and that’s not a simple task either. Consider that you need to have a version for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Kindle and for who knows what other product will be launched in the following years.

To handle all these products and how websites are viewed on them, responsive web design has been created, a concept that means the design and development should respond to the user’s environment and behavior based on screen size, platform and orientation.

And if you come to think about it, this is a magnificent idea. We shouldn’t build a design just for a certain group. Instead, we should make it for everybody and have it adapt to the needs and platform of each individual.

I don’t know if you remember how fluid web design worked a few years ago, but it wasn’t at all similar to the responsive design that we are using at the moment. We used to have only the text and the columns flexible, while images would cause a lot of problems and headaches.

Responsive web design makes a serious change to that, making the images responsive also, not just the other elements of the site. Layouts don’t break in RWB, instead the images are adjusted according to the screen size.

Even though the main problems have been solved by RWB, there are still issues that must be worked on and hopefully soon we will have an easier and a complete web designing experience which will not include headaches and stress.

Till then get yourself loaded with inspiration by checking out these responsive website designs examples and see for yourself on various platforms the benefits of having such a responsive website. You can use some of the tools mentioned earlier to check these responsive examples in various sizes and platforms. Inspire yourself from these website layout ideas and let me know if you created a website with the help of this article’s info.

Tilde

They’re a small team of developers who are passionate about crafting great software. They’re some of the faces behind Ember.js, Ruby on Rails, jQuery and more.

Treehouse

The Treehouse Techdegree is a comprehensive program that will teach you the solid foundation you need to master coding skills and prepare for a career as a certified developer.

Their extensive library of content taught by their expert teaching team covers topics like web design, web and mobile development, game development, and more.

The Onion

The Onion is an American digital media company and news satire organization that publishes articles on international, national, and local news.

The Onion’s articles cover current events, both real and fictional, satirizing the tone and format of traditional news organizations with stories, editorials, op-ed pieces, and man-in-the-street interviews using a traditional news website layout and an editorial voice modeled after that of the Associated Press.

Greenbelt

Greenbelt is a temporary home for those of all tastes. Why not simply find a place for your own tent and join the 95% of the festival population who camp onsite over the weekend.

Bukwild

Bukwild is a responsive design example that you’ll like. Bukwild was started back in 2001 as a web design company. They mainly serviced the music industry and major national advertising agencies as a digital production partner.

In 2010, they decided to bank on their own point of view, and shifted their offering from a digital production company to digital creative agency.

LightHouse

LightHouse has always strived to meet creative and production challenges. Their ingenuity, honesty, and work ethic has led them to be one of the most exciting production companies in the Northeast.

They offer multiple services under one roof, including separate departments for pre-production, production, equipment rentals, and post services.

Top Hat

Stoli

St. Louis Brewers Guild

The St. Louis Brewers Guild is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose civic and educational mission is to support and promote every brewery who calls the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area home. By supporting these breweries, the Guild in turn supports the vibrant local communities and economies that they serve.

Mustache

They organize meetings, workshops, and sessions, focusing on good, long lasting relationship with their customers. Your knowledge becomes our insight. From there, good ideas arise. Ideas, which they transform into user-friendly apps that add value to your business.

P & Co

P&co is a rebellious lifestyle brand created for the thrill seekers, the risk takers & the wild ones.

Through their original designs inspired by flash tattoos they create clothing and accessories that are now becoming more known and recognised around the world.

BureauVA

They are a digital agency focussed on delivering content and utility driven user-experiences.

Make

Make is a technology company helping brands drive innovation and creativity through powerful digital platforms and emerging technologies.

Techstyle

Neo Rig

They are a privately owned joint venture backed by two industry-leading global brands who have a 60-year legacy in research and development in the manufacturing and land drilling rig industry.

Squidex

Squidex is an open source headless CMS and content management hub. In contrast to a traditional CMS Squidex provides a rich API with OData filter and Swagger definitions. Their responsive website is modern and amazingly looking.

It is up to you to build your UI on top of it. It can be website, a native app or just another server. We built it on top of ASP.NET Core and CQRS and is tested for Windows and Linux on modern Browsers.

Yumler

Ghost Robot

Ghost Robot was founded in 2005 by independent film producers Zachary Mortensen and Mark De Pace.

Driven by the desire to create a stable foundation for creative storytelling, they designed a content studio based around a slate of young, innovative directors, utilizing short form media as a means to grow a brand and create content with a distinct creative voice.

EXERON

The beauty of EXERON – the modular structure and the hot pluggable modules make the installation like child’s play.

Exchange of modules or power upgrade is easily done within a few seconds without any tools or special skills. The X remains powered and operational during module exchange or upgrade.

Ilya Flarin

REX

REX is disrupting the property industry, in the same way Netflix, Amazon and Uber have irreversibly transformed their respective markets. REX is the next big thing in global real estate.

Premiere Classe

For 25 years Premiere Classe has been the prestigious meeting point for fashion accessories designers, showcasing leading and emerging brands. The Premiere Classe range responds to your requirements using the market trends.

Acclaimed for its exclusive selection, the trade show showcases 900 brands and designers in jewellery, shoes, leather goods as well as other types of accessories, especially chosen for their creativity, originality and style.

Anchour

They believe the best brands tell stories, which is why they partner with their clients to create impactful work that not only represents their business, but also connects them with people emotionally. Through strategy, design, content, and technology, they bring brands to life.

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