Why responsive web design is a must
What is responsive web design?
To truly answer the question about responsive web design, we must first clarify what it is to those who aren’t sure. Responsive website design is building a website dynamically so it will automatically resize depending on the size of the user’s browser offering the optimal user-experience on all devices.
Traditionally responsive web development was primarily thought of as making the site fit 3 views – desktop, tablet and phone. With such a myriad of devices all with different screen sizes now available, this approach is no longer appropriate and a really well built responsive site will re-size pixel by pixel so that at every different view the user is being given the optimal user experience.
So what are the benefits?
There are numerous benefits to responsive web design over other options such as a mobile website or a mobile app, although it’s very dependent on the industry you’re in and the market you’re targeting. Principal amongst these is cost. Building a single website that works on all different screen sizes is the most efficient way of building your website to ensure an optimal user experience across all devices. Sometimes you can get a better user experience from a specific mobile app but the benefits of these are often outweighed by the cost, especially when you’re looking at building a different app for each different device!
Building a website responsively offers the added benefit of a single website with a single URL, reducing the amount of time you need to spend updating the site as you only need to do it once. A separate mobile website or App can often have the content driven from a different database which means you have to update each version of your site separately.
From an SEO perspective, responsive web development is beneficial because it’s actually recommended by Google as their favoured configuration for optimising your website for a mobile device. This is important because search engines are always trying to group the world’s information most efficiently. In their opinion responsive web design is the best way of displaying your website on a mobile device so it stands to reason that they would reward websites that, according to them are providing an optimal user experience.
So when is it not appropriate?
Responsive web design is always appropriate – even if you have a separate mobile app because you’re a big online shop then you still need a website that looks great on all devices. Some people, especially if they’re buying something would rather purchase instantly off a website as opposed to going through the hassle of downloading an app.
A native app absolutely has its place and can be extremely important and useful but it should always be as an addition to a responsive website especially when you consider that if your goal is to get the user to download the app, they’re less likely to do so if your mobile web offering is below par.
Final thoughts
Generally responsive web design is the best way of ensuring an optimised mobile performance but there are instances when a native app may be as appropriate. One thing it’s always worth remembering, however is that responsive development is not all about creating a website that fits a screen of any size, it’s primary goal is to improve the user experience of the website on different devices, simplifying the navigation and ensuring clarity of information. We talk more about user experience within web design here.
