So what does a responsive website mean? A responsive website has pages that render well on almost all devices and screen sizes. Responsive websites became more important as mobile design became more important. As the variety of screen sizes and resolutions increased, developers had to develop more ways to ensure a great user experience, regardless of the device and system being used. Collections of technologies were developed to help create a more standardized user experience.
One of the most important parts of responsive design is called the fluid grid. Previously, developers created websites based on fixed pixels; The fluid grid uses aspect ratios instead of fixed pixels to design web pages. Media inquiries are another important part of responsive design. Media queries allow a website to obtain information about the user’s device and system to conditionally apply styles to a website. Media queries can also be used to design conditionally depending on whether a device is in portrait or landscape mode.
Some of the areas that need careful planning to create a responsive website include images and layout structure. Images that would look great on the desktop could be distorted on different devices and resolutions. HTML5 allows the property named data-fullsrc for the image tag. On any screen that is wider than 480 pixels, the highest resolution image will be loaded; for smaller screens, the lower resolution image will be loaded. JavaScript is sometimes used for implementation. For layouts with multi-column layouts, changing the layout for lower resolutions is an important consideration in ensuring that a website is responsive.
So why does your business need a responsive website? Depending on your business, more users will visit your website from a mobile device or tablet than from a desktop computer. Responsive design is something you want to get right off the bat as the issues and redesign will make it significantly more difficult to understand how your website is used. Working on conversion rate analysis and optimization (CRO) will be more difficult if there are multiple versions of your website. Another reason that creating a responsive website is important is that many businesses and individuals will judge the quality of their business and brand by how well their website looks and performs.
In general, responsive web development is used to make your website look great on all devices (desktop, tablet, and smartphone). Without careful planning your website might not be useful to certain people trying to use your website and it will generate smaller net income for your business.
