Designing a website that looks and works well requires creating a website that responds to the various screen sizes across various devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktop computers, smart televisions and more. Nowadays, people spend most of the time on their smartphones with 60% of global web traffic coming from mobile devices . Not every mobile version of a website does not capture the array of smartphone and tablet screen sizes and resolutions at play. Here responsive web design comes in the scene, the ability to create one website that adapts independently.
Today, we will learn about the benefits of responsive web design, and insights on how to build a responsive website to meet the present demand of users.
Responsive web design is an approach to meet the looks of website that ensures it looks and works well across a variety of devices and screen sizes. Responsive design is related to the graphic user interface (GUI). A responsive web design automatically scales the content and elements, ensuring users see everything they need to see – no missing pieces or cropped images – without the need to design dedicated websites for mobile or for any of the other screen sizes today.
There are two main approaches used in mobile design development: responsive and adaptive design.
In responsive design, website elements are developed to scale across a variety of device sizes. A responsive web design is just one version of the website that adjusts automatically based on the user’s screen size. As a single design, responsive web design is faster and cheaper, but a single mistake in image sizing or padding can impact user experience when adapting to smaller devices. In adaptive design, the website design is built for every device class. In adaptive design, the server determines which version of the website is served to each type of device. This is a more costly approach in the short and long-term, but it is optimized for user experience on each specific device.
Important Components of Responsive Web Design
Media Queries:
Media queries are filters applied to CSS that respond to the type of device, screen type, displaying browser or even device orientation. The purpose of a media query is to allow for different layouts using the same content blocks, each one optimized for the size or features of the device in question. A media query will design follow a rule based on minimum and/or maximum width parameters, alongside other factors such as resolution, browser, and orientation.
Fluid Grids:
A responsive web design uses an algorithm to normalize the UI elements to the size of the screen and the pixels. It does this with what is known as a “liquid layout” that considers each component by the percentage it takes up in the width – a content block, image, and the padding between and around blocks all add together to make up 100% in the width.
Flexible Visuals:
Images should be created in relative units called effective pixels to express layout dimensions and spacing, something that is more akin to “perceived size.” Elements should be designed with a base unit of 4 epx to ensure the design always scales to a whole number when the fluid grid is applied.
Important Reasons Why Responsive Design is Important for Business
Cost Effective:
Instead of designing websites for different screen sizes, a responsive web design can be created just once. Aside from the up-front cost savings, this also has long-term cost savings each time there’s an update, an A/B test, or new screen sizes emerge.
Improves User Experience:
Users today expect a consistent, fluid experience across channels. In retail, for example, a buyer may begin their journey on mobile and continue on a desktop or laptop device. A responsive web design offers users a consistent experience at every touch point. Further, responsive web design ensures the design always looks the best – no pinching, zooming, or unnecessary scrolling to navigate around.
Helps In Enhance SEO:
Responsive web design both improves SEO (search engine optimization) and also eliminates the SEO risks associated with separate mobile websites. Google uses over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm, including whether a site is responsive (as a measure of how user-friendly it is) and its speed. Responsive sites typically load faster than mobile-targeted designs. Concepts such as “performance budgets,” including compression and adaptive images, can be applied to further improve responsive web designs.
Increase Reach to Tablet and Mobile Users:
When a website is designed to be responsive to mobile users, this translates into more sticky customer experiences. 74% of people who visit a mobile-friendly site are more likely to return to that site; 67% are more likely to make a purchase. Conversely, 61% of users who don’t find what they are looking for on a mobile site are more likely to move on to the competition – and never return.
Better Analytics:
Insight is always more effective if you can track the consumer journey across all touch points. With adaptive web design, IT and marketers are tracking and collating data to two different web properties, making insights more difficult to track. With a single responsive web, it’s easier to set up analytics and to get meaningful insight.
Higher Conversion Rates:
Today most of the retail traffic comes from mobile devices. There are many factors that influence mobile conversion rates, including difficult navigation (19.3%), cannot see product detail (19.6%), difficult browsing (19.6%) and difficulty inputting details (18.6%). To put it simply, many websites fail to convert because they are not responsive. Conversely, one study indicates that responsive web design can lead to a 10.9% increase in visitor to buyer conversion rates year-over-year.
Designing for mobile devices is more than essential to success in today’s marketplace for businesses of all sizes. If your website is not already mobile oriented designed, then this is the time to look & think about responsive web design.
