Everyone who wish to own a website these days wants a mobile version of their website. It’s vital after all: one design for the BlackBerry, another for the iPhone, the iPad, netbook, Kindle and all screen resolutions must be compatible, too. In the next three years, we’ll likely need to design for a number of additional devices. How to end this? You can’t, of course.
Responsive Web Design to the rescue:
Responsive web design is an approach that suggests that a well designed website should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to fit for the resolution, image size etc. In other words, the website should have the ability to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market. Also user’s reading experience will be smooth.
Origin:
The term responsive web design was coined by Ethan Marcotte. In his seminal List Apart article (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/) he consolidated three existing techniques (flexible grid layout, flexible images, and media and media queries) into one unified approach and named it responsive web design. The term is often used to infer the same meaning as a number of other descriptions such as fluid design, elastic layout, rubber layout, liquid design, adaptive layout, cross-device design, and flexible design.
Technology Involved and Implementation:
Implementation of responsive web design doesn’t involve any new technologies. It involves the same old HTML markup and css for styling. The main component of responsive web design is CSS3 Media Queries.
Media Queries:
CSS3 media queries has the ability to target styles based upon the capability or features of a device, rather than merely the type of device. Think of it as a question to the browser. If the browser’s answer is “true”, the enclosed styles are applied. If the answer is “false”, they are not.
An example:
A visual example will make things more clear. If haven’t noticed this website by itself is responsive. You can check the link below to view how our website appears in various screen resolutions. http://criticalpathms.com/Responsive
In Critical Path Management Solutions, We have professionally trained people, who are experienced in implementing Responsive web design. You can either implement Responsive web design to your existing website or else you can also go for a total redesign. We are glad to help you out on either ways. Click here to contact us.