Responsive Design seems to be the latest buzz in the web world today, almost every website that I visit uses it. With the released of smartphones and tablets, businesses wanted to invest on these different devices and take the opportunity.
Simply put, responsive uses flexible grid that adapt to various screen sizes (resolution), font size and layout changes to be readable in mobile and tablet devices. Before, designers create a website for desktop and another one for mobile which cost a lot of time and money, this strategy can only focus on certain device and not ideal for small business that has small budget.
Liquid vs Responsive
In the early years monitors were 800×600 resolution, once the screen resolution goes 1024 liquid design was born. Liquid Design, kept everything in place and blocks of content were scalable in width. The problem was if you have 1920 resolution, you’ll have a website that was huge as it fills the entire screen.
Right now, we are offered with various screen size and to cater all of them is to use responsive design. Whenever your screen goes 1920 or 800 you’ll have the same experience as it hold itself when the screen is larger and shrink when it is smaller.
Is Responsive the answer?
Yes and no.
Yes, if you’re offering a useable information and user’s need to browse it thru their mobile or tablet device, for example they are in a bus and they wanted to check the news. Content would display readable and the user can enjoy whatever they are looking for.
No, if you have a layout that doesn’t convey the principles of responsive design, remember that responsive is simplicity. Simplicity that we were able to let go its course due to the development of the web-technology. Desktop websites and mobile websites are not the same.
Thoughts
When I first changed my theme to responsive, traffic from mobile grows. This means that people are comfortable browsing using their smartphones and tablets, this differs though on your audience and niche. Watching the WordPress Themes goes to responsive is a big sign that it is really a helpful solution to offer.
Here is an inforgraphic why you’re site should work on mobile, and here is another one about mobile web.