Responsive Website Design has grown in popularity in recent times and has become one of the main solutions to combat the issue of having a website look good on multiple platforms. The fact that the number of mobile Internet users has surpassed those on other devices like desktop PC is a strong sign of things to come in the future. Hence no business can afford to ignore the likely scenario in the future where more people are using the Internet and that too on their mobile devices.
That said the main aim of a website besides having a fancy design and making sure that it has all the bells and whistles as per the current trends is a good presentation of the content. It is important to make sure that you do not lose focus on the content of the website. Because although the look and feel of a website are important if it does not have appropriate content, the website is quite meaningless.
Maintaining focus on content and performance
Internet users are a mixed group of people and surf the Internet in varied fashions. They are hence not likely to stick around on a single website for long if they do not find what they are looking for quick. When it comes to a desktop browser the screen is large and one may not need to scroll down to view all the information. At the same time, the user may need to scroll at the most one page down and view all details.
The same may not apply to a mobile device. The content that you deemed important and is in a strategic position on the desktop may not necessarily appear on the top on a mobile device. In fact, the user may actually need to scroll several times to get to it. This would be a turn-off on a mobile device especially if the website is also not performing very well.
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It is necessary to focus on the content and make sure the responsive design gives equal justice to both the mobile and desktop browsers.
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In terms of performance since the same code that is delivered to a large 32-inch monitor is also delivered to a small 4-inch mobile device the performance may take a hit on the mobile device.
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The performance issue does not apply to every responsive website though. There are some responsive website layouts that perform equally well on a mobile as well.
However, there are exceptions and hence some responsive layouts take a performance hit on mobile devices where a slow internet connection can make matters even worse.
The way ahead:-
Responsive web design is here to stay. However, some also prefer the adaptive design to compensate for the performance hit. That said Responsive Website Design is possible with three main ingredients, Fluid Grids, Flexible images, and the last but important one Media Queries. These three usually make a fairly good website.
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