What is responsive design?

Responsive web design is a technique that scales and adjusts your website so that it fits optimally on a device other then a computer (e.g. iPhone / iPad / tablet).   This allows the user to view your site with minimal scrolling or resizing (zooming in and out).

With more and more users using mobile based devices, it is becoming critical that your website is made to be “responsive”. It was noted in the “Our mobile planet: Australia – understanding the mobile consumer”report that 61% of mobile users are unlikely to return to a site that they had trouble accessing from their phone.

Responsive design also “future proofs” your website to some degree, for newer devices that come out to the market.  This is due to the fact that we don’t design the site to a set width, but rather detect smaller screens, and then set the content to automatically adjust to fit this screen.  So if Apple brings out a new iPhone that is 10 pixels wider, the design will adapt to this width automatically.  Also as part of our design process, we may opt to turn certain items off at certain widths, e.g. you may have a bigger scrolling “banner” on your home page on a monitor, but on a smaller device we will “hide” this content, to ensure users can get to the “core” of your content quickly.

If you are interested in making your site responsive, or have any questions about responsive design, please get in contact with TMD Online today.