Responsive Design Makes Your Website Mobile-Friendly

by | Jan 3, 2013

Virtually every business needs a website, but these days the web isn’t just about what you see on a computer screen. People are using the internet on an increasingly diverse array of devices, fromsmartphones to gaming consoles. Some experts predict that by 2014, most web traffic in the U.S. will be on mobile devices.


The trouble is, most business websites are still designed with only a desktop or laptop computer in mind. When you view a typical business website on the browser of mobile device, it usually requires pinching, zooming and scrolling just to see what’s on the page. And interacting with the site via a touchscreen can be clumsy at best.

It is possible to create designs for each of the major screen sizes and devices types, but ultimately that’s a losing game. New device types will outpace any designer’s ability to spin off customized themes.

To compensate, more businesses are deploying one or more mobile-optimized web designs, or “themes,” that the web server sends to a user when a mobile device is detected. That’s a first step, but mobile devices come in many sizes and shapes. What looks great on, say, an iPhone may look and perform poorly on a Kindle Fire.


No Mobile Website? You’re Probably Turning Customers Away

One solution is something called “responsive web design,” which can make your website easier and cheaper to manage, while giving mobile users a better experience. This allows you to create one design that will fit almost any screen and device type, and can also enhance your search visibility. Additionally, it avoids the hurdle of expecting users to type in “m.” before your site URL to access the mobile-friendly version.

When a user accesses a responsively designed website, the site senses the constraints of that user’s device and automatically “responds” or reconfigures itself to display and function reasonably well. It reorganizes the layout, for instance, swapping out images and navigation features.

As new web-enabled device types become popular, such as Android-powered cameras, you’ll only need to tweak your responsive design to accommodate them.

To create a responsive site for your business, you can either hire a designer or use a site-building tool that supports responsive web design. Either way, these five tips can help you make the switch to responsive design.

1. Decide when to make the change.

Responsive design is a radically different way of managing the elements of a website, which means it’s hard to introduce responsive design to an existing conventional website. You’ll probably want to wait until you’re creating a new site or rebuilding your existing one.

2. Track your mobile traffic patterns.

Check your site statistics for the number of mobile visitors, plot how that segment of your online market has been growing and project it two to five years into the future. The steeper that growth curve, the more important it is to implement responsive web design sooner rather than later.

3. Use effective, affordable tools if you do it yourself. 

If you decide to create a responsively designed site on your own, consider trying the latest SiteNinaj CMS. It’s an inexpensive web hosting service that lets you create a responsive website via a drag-and-drop interface.

4. Check out competitors’ sites on various devices.

Keep a list of URLs for businesses similar to yours. Periodically check them all out on a variety of computers, smartphones and tablets. Which are easiest to navigate and use, requiring the least pinching, zooming and scrolling? Use the best as guidance for your designer.

5. Hire web designers with responsive design experience. 

Many designers serving small-to-medium business clients are still focused on designing sites intended for viewing on computers. Be sure to ask for recent examples of a designer’s responsively designed sites. Don’t just get screenshots — ask for the URLs and check those sites on a variety of device types, paying attention both to how they look and how well they function.

This article republised from entrepreneur.com

37 Ways to Level Up Your Design

Ever been working on a design that feels too plain? Let’s look at a few dozen simple ways to spice things up. Get ready to bookmark this page, because you’ll want to reference this list in the future. It’s unbelievable how many incredible pro-level designs feature...

Powering Creativity: Exploring the Pros of WordPress Page Builders

In today's digital age, building an eye-catching and functional website is crucial for businesses and individuals alike. WordPress, the popular content management system (CMS), offers a wide range of page builders to simplify the website creation process. In this blog...

Website Menu Accessibility

Heading Order One of the easiest accessibility improvements you can make to a website with big impact is adding headings to break up content and using them in  the correct numerical order. When you’re building websites, always use headings in the correct order to...

ChatGPT: New OpenAI text generator is out of this world

The newly trained ChatGPT from Open AI has been released to much fanfare. No doubt you may have seen people on social media posting tests from it, or maybe a youtube video popped up on your feed. Well, AI is here and making a big statement with ChatGPT. What is the...

Introducing Rapid Wireframing

Mix & Match 478+ premade Blocks & export the final design as .json file. This is not a plugin nor child theme. Nothing to be installed on your site. It's is an online drag & drop tool for you to easily mix & match 478+ premade blocks then simply export...