Should one embrace responsive web design or not?
Responsive web design! The whole new buzz word is taking on momentum all over the web. Why is that so? Why did people not talk about responsive web design a whole year ago when Ethan Marcotte launched the topic on in his now famous article?
Technology is the vector for responsive web design.
Technology is evolving very fast. Some 10 years ago, we were all dreaming of using the Internet on a portable device. Today it doesn’t surprise anyone to see somebody using a smart-phone or a tablet to read, surf, mail… It would be more surprising to see somebody using a cassette walk-man on the bus today (mind you, I don’t have anything against cassette players, I still have one).
There has been a notable increase in terms of screen resolutions over these years. The tremendous amount of devices make users visit websites from diverse perspectives. Web designers usually had alternate layouts for mobile phones, but what is the approach to tablets?
This is where responsive web design gets into the picture.
Evolving development languages.
Part of the solution comes from the fact that web development languages are continuously evolving. Responsive web design takes its roots in exploiting these new features. One in particular, media queries.
Media queries allow developers to identify the screen resolution a user is experiencing the website with and this allows them to offer a dedicated style-sheet. Does this sound familiar? It was the option one had in DOM scripting at a given time to serve the right style-sheets to any type of resolution. Another easy parallel is the fluid layout developers could use before the advent of the 960 pixel grid system.
What would these look like? If you’ve never heard of responsive web design then this site will be very very interesting to you: mediaqueri.es. Each site is presented in 4 layouts: optimised for mobile phones, standard tablets, standard wide-screen tablets and standard desktop computer screen. All these are dealt with CSS mediaqueries.
Against responsive web design?
Responsive web design does have its drawbacks. Building 4 style-sheets is a heck of a job. We don’t know what technology can hold for us concerning new resolutions. What about building 15 style-sheets and maintaining them one day?
In responsive web design, the images are resized by the browser itself. This is a drawback concerning performance, especially on mobile phones. CSS 3 and media queries are not yet implemented on all browsers, just like HTML5. This is also one of the obstacles to go past. The code (HTML or JS) is not optimised, hence a huge kick in performance’s teeth.
So, would you embrace responsive web design or not?
My personal view of responsive web design is that it is a huge step forward. The emerging problem of multiple screens is still new and new solutions will come round. We should however keep in mind that this solution exists and can be the opening of a new age in web designing. The problem is huge and we are all trying and testing new solutions.
Responsive web design a temporary, perfectible, answer to the problem. A new browser war is starting but standards are now paving the way. There’s still way to go but if you need hype, you’ve got it with your media queries. These can be used as deal closers but be sure to master them.
Category: Standards and code
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Twitter: blebon
says:
If I’m not mistook
blogging platforms automatically detect the browsing device and deploy array of css-es for each. Even Tumblr – which I currently use – has an in-built blog mobile version.
Btw I don’t have time to cater for all platforms. I simply pay attention to the majority of my visitors. I would not waste time optimising my site for only one giant iPhone user. :/
Mauritius Blog List » Mobile versions are what I talked about at the beginning of the post. Nearly all platforms have those. It is easier for them as they deploy only a few CSSes for the whole bunch of sites which might not be the case for self-hosted sites. Now, I know that you’re an anti Apple user but other systems do make use of the same type of technology. The discussion is on a more general note than on the iThing itself
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Web design may have a long long way to go before implementing responsive web design not talking about the compatibility issues of browsers with HTML5 and CSS3. maybe in the next decade we will see internet users that only access the web through their smart phone or tablets starting a new era where web design will be forced to be responsible learn the trends or get run over by emerging technologies.
SEO Mauritius Specialist » Mobile devices are a hype but let’s not forget that desktops will still be here whatever the evolutions are. I don’t see myself writing my code off a mobile phone or a tablet. Trends will still be influencing web design. The problem we are facing today is that trendy devices are bringing on new experiences. On the other hand we are still settling down with the now famous 960 grid. What if the new standard resolution goes to 1680px wide for example?
In india, web designers have not even understood the concept of customer satisfaction ! Web design is hugely an unorganized market in the third worl, still.
I would agree with your post in here. We as web designers and SEO Specialist should embrace this idea. I think we can slowly embrace this one. Thanks for having this post. I really fell that this could be a good waken power to other web designers like us.
Great post! I’ve been trying to bring my clients and colleagues into thinking responsively for over a year now.
Interesting post here, have to agree with ecommerce web design’s comment though, web design should be responsive, no question about it.
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