Responsive design is a design approach that aims to design user interfaces that adapt to various screen sizes and devices, like mobile phones, tablets, desktops, TVs, watches, etc.
This design approach aims to ensure usability, consistent functionality, and user satisfaction across various media devices. Users view web products from different devices like tablets, TVs, desktops, and laptops, and because of that, responsive design becomes a necessity to keep users on our product.
In this article, we will discuss the importance of responsive design, the consequences of an unresponsive design, and ways to achieve a responsive design like fluid layouts, using media queries and breakpoints, mobile-first design, using relative units, proper image sizing, accessibility, and showing and hiding content based on user context.
IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Responsive design has no doubt numerous benefits that make it a necessity in any web development project, and they include:
- Better user experience
A web development project that prioritizes responsive design makes the user’s experience memorable; it makes their experience smooth and friction-free, and this makes the brand more trustworthy, makes them look competent, and in turn, helps keep the users from leaving the brand for their competitors.
Better user satisfaction
Making sure customers are pleased with your product irrespective of the device they use to access it makes them satisfied, makes them loyal customers, and they will likely recommend your product, which could mean more customers for your business.Better user retention
Keeping customers regularly satisfied helps the business retain them, and this can be done by incorporating responsive design into your product. This is especially important because people usually access the internet with their smartphones, and so having the same good experience they had on the desktop or laptop on their smartphone will retain them.Better SEO Performance
Search engines rank mobile-friendly websites higher than their counterparts, and because of this, responsive design is important as it positively affects the website’s ranking on search engines, thereby improving visibility and organic traffic.
CONSEQUENCES OF AN UNRESPONSIVE DESIGN
Bad user experience
When users find it difficult to navigate your website because of its unresponsive nature, they begin to feel frustrated and angry, which will make them leave your site quickly.Bad user satisfaction
An unresponsive website makes the users dread your product, leaving them unsatisfied, which will make them leave you for your competitors.Bad SEO performance
A website that is not mobile-friendly will be ranked poorly on search engines, and this will stunt your visibility and organic traffic, which are paramount for customer acquisition.
HOW TO GET RESPONSIVE DESIGN RIGHT
There are several ways to achieve responsive design to make better products:
Fluid Layouts
A fluid layout is a design approach that aims to make webpage content resize to fit its container within various screen sizes. This is achieved by using percentage units instead of pixels and by using Flexbox.
By using percentages in our designs as units, we can increase, decrease, or set an element’s size relative to the screen size of the device used to access our product. For example, if we have a two-column header, instead of having one of the web elements at 600px and the other at 200px width, which will still look good on some devices but will look too small on very large devices and too big to fit very small devices, we could instead make them at 60% and 35% width, respectively, ensuring that they grow or shrink based on the screen sizes.
Another method is the use of CSS Flexbox to flexibly align items in a container in rows and columns, making each item grow and shrink while maintaining its order and spacing.Proper image sizing
Properly sizing images for responsive design means using percentages instead of pixels. This is achieved by making an image a percentage of its container, thereby making the image increase, decrease, or fit the container irrespective of various screen sizes. Using percentages ensures that the image is neither too small nor too big for the container and various screen sizes.Mobile-First Design
Mobile-first design is necessary for every website. With webpage traffic from mobile devices surpassing that of desktops, laptops, and TVs, designing for mobile first ensures that you are not losing a large pool of users. Designing for mobile first includes displaying only important and necessary functionalities, the user interface (UI), the call to action (CTA), and the core solutions your customers are looking for, as there is limited screen real estate.
As a frontend developer, mobile-first design makes your journey of building responsive websites easier, as it is easier to scale up designs than it is to scale down to fit smaller devices, which could reduce redundant code, improve the developer experience, and overall be a job well done.Using Relative Units
Relative units are units that are not fixed but are based on a reference to another element's size, unlike pixelated values. Relative units include em, rem, %, vw, and vh. Using relative units ensures that our design scales according to the screen size, which effectively makes our design responsive.Media Queries and Breakpoints
Breakpoints are specified pixelated values where specified CSS rules must be followed, and media query is a CSS feature that allows a developer or designer to set breakpoints at which certain CSS rules must be applied.
For example:
@media screen and (min-width: 400px) {
div {
width: 100px;
height: 50px;
background-color: blue;
}
}
In the example above, when a user visits our site with a device of 400 pixels or more, the CSS rule in the curly braces will be applied. You may wonder, of what use is this? Well, this is very important if there are specific changes, alignments, or designs we have in mind for certain screen sizes. Media queries and breakpoints allow developers and designers to make designs to adapt to various specified screen sizes.
Prioritizing Accessibility
Making a responsive design does not only involve a fluid layout, properly sizing images, using relative units, etc., but also making sure that your website is accessible to all. There are several ways one can achieve accessibility; they include:
a. Using the right color and contrast
b. Using legible fonts
c. Making your site compatible enough with assistive technologies such as screen readers
d. Making navigation easy and friction-freeShow and hide content based on user context.
Because of the limited screen real estate on mobile phones, designers and developers must only show important and primary information on the screen and then add proper navigation menus, buttons, and dropdowns to display secondary elements when needed. Some CSS features that can be used to achieve this include “visibility: hidden," “display: none," and a lot more.
In conclusion, responsive design is a must in every web development project, as there are downsides to its negligence and a whole lot of advantages if done right. Combining the above-mentioned ways will take your designs to the next level and give you the responsiveness your site needs.
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