Although a responsive website used to have a very broad definition, over the years it has been fine-tuned into a solid standard that all web development companies must strive towards.
The rise in popularity of mobile devices has also created an exponential growth in the amount of time spent by users on the web through their mobile device. Mobile devices do not display websites like desktops do, resulting in the need to change web standards.
While a computer screen ranges in both width and pixel height, mobile displays are primarily taller than they are wide. This presents numerous issues for websites rendered on mobile devices; the sites become very difficult to view and use unless they are programmed to be viewed on mobile displays. This, is where responsive web development comes into play.
A responsive website changes its layout depending on the display dimensions of the device it is viewed in. This in itself is a fairly broad definition, since a “responsive website” display can be achieved through different methods. The most common methods can be generalized into three, which are sometimes called different things by various developers.
When mobile websites first launched, the easiest available method to achieve a “responsive” web design was to create a script, which changed the layout of the website when displayed through a mobile device. This created a clunky standard, which temporarily solved the problem of displaying websites through mobile devices, at the expense of performance and user experience. This is known as “static” responsive web design. While this responsive method is still used today, it is the least effective in terms of performance, but the most effective in terms of development time. In other words, this is fairly inexpensive to create, but poor in terms of quality.
The second most popular method to create a responsive website is known as “flat”, or adaptive responsive web design. This is a stronger, more effective method of achieving a responsive layout, but it still falls short of true responsive website. A “flat” responsive design, allows a website to fit its architectural layout depending on screen display dimensions. The classic definition of “flat” responsive design is when content stretches or shrinks to fit, but the actual layout itself doesn’t change much, and sometimes resulting content is misaligned. While this method is better than the previous method in terms of website performance, it falls short in terms of user experience.
With the evolution of the above two methods, a new method was given birth which is what we now call “fluid” or liquid responsive web development, which is now the true responsive standard developers strive for. This method uses intelligent CSS and HTML coding, with no scripts to effect the layout of the site. In addition, content fluidly reconstructs in every dimension for an optimal user interface and user experience. The only downside is that fluid responsive websites are fairly expensive to produce, and time consuming to develop.
So why is this all important? Why should you care about all this tech mumbo jumbo? Well, not only do responsive websites increase traffic and conversions because your visitors can use them quickly and easily, they further boost your business’ online presence by increasing your SEO rank. That’s right; your listing within search engine queries will IMPROVE if your site is responsive.
Google uses a search engine algorithm to mathematically rank your website in their search results based on numerous factors. New amongst these factors are your sites responsive display along with its user experience and interface performance. What is the best way to meet all these criteria? Ideally, a fluid responsive website.
Although other methods of achieving a responsive design are accepted, performance is a factor for the best search engine results and user experience. If your company’s online presence is important to your business, we highly recommend the implementation of a fluid responsive design.
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Trends Mobile and Web Solutions has been producing mobile websites that are fully responsive and beautiful, while increasing traffic and improving ROI for small businesses since 2013. Visit our portfolio to view some of our work and contact us to set up a free consultation for your business!