Technology has always changed from time to time. However, the pace of technological changes and upgrades in the last decade has been frantic, to say the least. New developments are being made and changing the way in which people worked and lead their lives. Consider the case of communications. In the last part of the twentieth century, people could clearly distinguish between mobile phones and computers. While mobile phones were needed to make calls and send text messages, computers (desktops and laptops) could be used for various other purposes including internet browsing. However, the advent of smart phones towards the fag end of the twentieth century changed the scenario and made internet a mobile possession. People could now access the internet through their mobile phones and the recent tablets added another platform for internet accessibility.
Given the different screen sizes of all these devices, internet browsing experience can happen to be displeasing. Large websites, meant for the computer screens, require substantial vertical and horizontal scrolling, when accessed through tablets and mobile phones. This has left web designers with a question of how best can they reach out to their target audience, on all different platforms.
RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN SITES – THE SOLUTION
Looking for solutions, some people endeavoured to develop multiple websites, each meant for the different platforms through which a company’s target market could visit its site. However, this required extensive maintenance which would entail significant time and money considerations. A responsive web design, on the other hand, can save you of all the cost and still manage to offer your target audience with a pleasing experience. It has presented, to the world of web designing and development, a futuristic alternative which promises to herald a paradigm shift.
WHAT ARE RESPONSIVE WEB SITES?
Responsive web sites, as the name suggests, are those websites which adapt to the environment on which they are being viewed and accessed. They make use of fluid proportion based grids which help them easily adapt to the platform. Media Query is a CSS element which helps browsers communicate about the greatest pixel width that they can support. On the basis of the same, assumptions about the width of the device’s screen are made and the site, hence, varies accordingly.
Therefore, a responsive web design will ensure that the images are resized according to the size of the screen and so is the case with the header and other text too. Not only are all these elements resized but also formatted to offer the best experience to the site visitors.
BENEFITS OF RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN SITES
Apart from enhanced user interface of the websites, a responsive design is also accompanied by many benefits for the web designers too. They are now spared of the efforts of maintaining multiple sites at once. Making content changes also becomes simpler as the changes are only supposed to be made once. All of this saves on their efforts.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN FOR MOBILE DEVICES ONLY?
One myth, about responsive web design sites, is that they are only meant for mobile phones and tablets. Responsive design, however, is an approach which can pervade across all devices, which make use of the internet.
Responsive Web Design is, hence, the way forward for websites and other forms of online existence.
