The need for responsive websites: Ten years ago when a website was designed and built you could probably guarantee that over 90% of people viewing it would be sitting at their desk, and using a monitor with a resolution of at least 1024×768 pixels.
If the website was sufficiently advanced, they might offer a mobile version – which would be a vastly stripped-down, text only version of the site as mobile data was rare and mobile phones generally looked like this:
Since then, the introduction of the iPhone and iPad has led the mobile internet revolution, and today 72% of the UK now owns a smartphone, over 50% of households own a tablet, and the latest generation of consoles and TV’s also have built in web browsers.
We can no longer make any assumptions about what sized ‘canvas’ a user is going to view a website on. They might be at work, using a traditional PC, on a train using their phone or on their sofa using their tablet.
Wherever they are, and however they are accessing your website, they will expect it to work – they will want to be able to achieve their goals, whether that’s finding the address of your office, or browsing and buying a product.
Responsive design focuses on ensuring that this expectation is met – that no matter how a user arrives at your website and what device they are using to look at it, they are presented with an attractive, easy to use and navigable website that has been designed to help them achieve their goal. Our method is to start with the most challenging of the group, the tightly restrained dimensions of a phone, and work outwards to a full screen desktop display.
You can find out more more details about how we create responsive websites here, or contact us for a chat.