What is Responsive Design?

Responsive design is done in aims of providing the best user experience across a broad range of platforms, from PC, to laptop, and to mobile devices. Responsive design makes content automatically respond to match any screen size. 

It is important that you make your website responsive. In this blog post, we have 5 tips on how you can make your website responsive.

Why Use Responsive Design?

Responsive design has various benefits over traditional non-responsive design. Here is a list of some of the key benefits:

• Cost effectiveness
• Flexibility
• Improved user experience (UX)
• SEO gains
• Ease of management

Websites used to be laid out on a measurement known as pixels. Today, website designers are using a fluid grid.

A grid sizes the element’s site proportionally – in relation to one another, rather than making them one specific size. This makes it easy when sizing elements for different-sized screens; the elements respond to the size of the screen.

A responsive grid is commonly divided into columns, with their heights and widths scalable. Nothing has a fixed width or height. Instead, the proportions depend on how large the screen is.

Touchscreens are not limited to mobile devices these days, certain laptops come with them too. This makes it all the more vital for responsive websites to be designed with both mouse and touchscreen users in mind.

If you have a form that contains a drop-down menu on a desktop view, consider styling this form, so it is larger and easier to press with a fingertip on touchscreen devices. 

Additionally, remember that tiny elements (like buttons) are very difficult to touch on smartphones, so try to implement images, calls to action, and buttons that display properly on all screens.

Having a responsive website design does not mean you replicate exactly what is on your desktop site to your mobile site. You will need to choose what works best for each individual site to deliver the best user experience to your audience.

Sometimes, it is best to leave things out for both functionality and visual appeal. One method you can use to reduce clutter on your mobile site is to implement navigation options into a button that can be opened with a single press.

Image sizing is vital to a responsive website. You would want to avoid having an image not load properly on your website, which damages your brand image and repels audiences.

You will need to create rules in your CSS that determine how images are handled across different screens – whether they should be made the full width, or removed.

If you are using WordPress, there are plenty of community-developed free and paid themes available that are responsive from the get-go.