With so many devices available, the user experience has never been more unique. People can access the web through their smart phone, a tablet, a television, even smartwatches. For your website to deliver the best experience to a user, you have to make sure your design can adapt to different screens.
4.32 billion online users prefer to browse the internet on their smartphones. If your site is not responsive, you may be driving away these users!
What Is Responsive Design?
Responsive design is the ability for your web design to adjust to any screen size it is being viewed on. It allows to the site to be easily navigated and viewed properly. The goal of responsive design is to avoid unnecessary resizing, scrolling, and panning, to avoid user frustrations.
An example of how Slack.com appears across a number of devices.
Many sites only have a desktop version and a mobile version. Responsive design saves the time of coding an entirely new mobile version of the site as well as simplifying all your work into one main design. Responsive design provides flexibility because it only needs you to make changes or adjustments to a single site.
Responsive design can also benefit the success of a site. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an overarching strategy used by companies to help boost a site’s search page rankings. Websites with mobile-friendly designs have an advantage over other sites that may not be able to be accessed without a desktop.
To make a design responsive, you have to add some additional code to an already existing site. The responsive code provides instructions and performance parameters to trigger the changes needed on each screen to make the layout fluid. This way the same version of a site can be viewed by users on a variety of different devices.
When building a new website, it’s advisable to take the mobile-first approach. Set up the original layout to present well on a smaller screen and scale it up from there.
Responsive design allows your website to scale smoothly across all screen resolutions and sizes and renders it to look great and work well on all devices. It consolidates your web maintenance all into one place which saves you time, resources, and effort.
A modern-looking, mobile-friendly website is becoming a prerequisite to grow your business and attract users in a device driven market. It solidifies your online presence and provides the user with a website they want to continue interacting with. As the way we view our digital world continues to change, it’s important to make sure your website can adapt as well.
Photo by picjumbo.com
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