What makes your ideal website? Is it functionality? Perhaps content richness? Have you yet considered its adaptability across platforms? We have all been exploring the internet on our phones and, in the same experience, loaded up a website which simply does not function on our phones browser. Given this lack of functionality, we probably clicked away from the site feeling unfulfilled. This cross-platform adaptability is referred to as responsive web design. Let’s take a look at how it works and why it matters:

How does Responsive Web Design Work?

In essence, responsive web design refers to the ability of your webpage’s content to shift based on the specifications of your visitor’s device/screen size. The recognition comes from the code which forms all aspects of your website which “senses” the visitors screen resolution and automatically adjusts the scale of your website to best fit the users device settings. This action can shrink, move, rearrange, and even hide certain elements of your website in order to ensure the best possible experience for your visitors. 

Why is Responsiveness Important?

As referred to in the opening paragraph; not having a website which is utilizable on a mobile platform is detrimental to your user experience. Beyond being annoying to visitors, in some instances it can cost your business money, even from customers which you have already served. Having a responsive website is paramount is ensuring that your customers can access your website no matter where they are or what device they are using.

Beyond general customer satisfaction, responsive web design can also help you adhere to legal mandated accessibility guidelines. If your website hosts any type of survey or form for visitors to use while visiting, but that form is obscured, lost, or otherwise unreasonably complicated by a lack of responsive design, you could be at legal risk of repercussions based on ADA standards. For more information regarding accessibility, check out this article from the MMDC Blog.

Furthermore, your search engine ratings also rely partially on the responsiveness of your website. While Google has not explicitly stated that website responsiveness directly impacts your search result ratings, the company has implied its importance of website responsiveness on multiple occasions. Part of the algorithm which search engines utilize determines your website's “quality”, which is determined in part by the page's responsiveness.

Responsiveness Strategies:

There are a few typical strategies by which to build a website around the idea of responsiveness:

The first pillar of responsive web design is incorporating fluid grids. This strategy ensures that your website’s content fills the same relative space no matter the size of the screen which is displaying the site. In the most basic terms, your website will determine the resolution of a visitor’s screen, process the height and width of available space, and expand the content of your page accordingly. This is similar to using “justified” font formatting on a word document, where every line of text is fitted to the same width no matter the character count.

Using a similar strategy, the importance of fluid images is paramount to successful screen-based formatting. The same website-based analysis takes place as with a fluid grid formatting, but instead of modifying the size of the text on the page, the images on your website will be modified in order to maintain their usual ratio of height to width, scaling them to best fit the user’s device.

The third principle of responsive design is called media queries. This design element modifies the column design on your website. Again analyzing the resolution of a visitor’s browser, this element relies solely on the width of a browser, adjusting the columns of content on your website. For example, a mobile browser likely is not well-suited for a web page which features three columns of content. Utilizing a media query, your website will automatically adjust those three columns down to two or one, based on priorities set by you and your web designer, making all of the content accessible and easy to understand.

Conclusion:

We all know the struggle of attempting to utilize a website which is not formatted properly for mobile use. While many peoples’ first thought about web accessibility is ensuring its utility on a computer’s browser, tablets, smartphones, and even laptops all introduce new screen resolutions and opportunities for a website to be mis-formatted. Help boost your user happiness, search engine results, and keep your company aesthetic consistent alongside MysticMedia Dot Com; our expert team LOVES to help your business succeed. For more information about us and what we do, check out our services or contact us today!