The assumption that your web design is responsive can only be made true when the users using different operating systems and podiums to access the website, are able to do it successfully. The web design which is responsive is becoming more famous as it removes the need of constantly updating, or adding additional features to the mobile website. Some website owners and designers even think that using responsive web design removes the need of a mobile website.

Experts state that the responsive web design actually consists of flexible layouts, media questions and fluid grids that make the website more accessible and easy to use. If one does not use this responsive web design, there are chances that the website owner will have to provide the visitors with different URL’s compatible with different devices.

The best thing about the responsive web design is that websites needs to be designed only once to be accessed with the different devices and operating systems. It is even simpler than any mobile website or template, since the whole website is designed in a way which makes it suitable to adjust to any screen resolution.

Let’s Have Few Words about the Working of the Responsive Web Design

The word “responsive”, when used for the web design, means that the whole website is constructed in a way where it fits or adjusts according to the resolution of the screen, used by the user for accessing the website. For example, let’s say that you are reading something on your tablet, and you have to switch to another device to read the same thing; in this case the responsive web design will actually re-size that page or website according to your other device. If you are frequent user of these devices, then this is a great feature for you. The responsive web design actually gives you a new experience of looking at a thing, irrespective of which device or platform you are using to access the website. This design also works well with large websites that don’t support Java Script.

Mobile Websites have Become Need of Hour

It is a given fact that most people, today, use a mobile to access websites. Tablets are also mostly preferred by students for the task of note taking etc. It is much more preferred than the non portable PC. So designing websites for the mobile has almost become a necessity.

While making a website, when you start coding for a specific resolution, the usual end result is a mess of too many style sheets. The media queries, actually, help build a resolution match for an I-phone in both portrait and landscape view through CSS3. As you can predict, you can restore any HTML template, on the mobile website of your now website to your original one, at any time.

Making a website for a mobile, with the help of a responsive web design, automatically takes care of the different aspects of mobile. This means that you do not have to configure the CSS properties separately for both mobile and desktop version of the website.

The only thing you need to be on a look out for is how to display the website on the smallest of the screens with perfect resolution. A program known as Google Analytics can provide you with a lot of help in this matter.

It is a fact that your website might not, 100%, successfully work on each and every device. But obviously, your goal should always be to have your website work on the maximum devices with an average screen resolution. I-phone models using 320 by 480 resolutions have also attained it. A screen of 240 pixels or even smaller is more preferable.

Eradicating the Default Zoom of Mobile Website

While browsing a website on your mobile, you might have noticed that certain websites automatically zooms itself out to go beyond the size of your mobile screen. It is somehow best for the user, since not every website is compatible with the mobile browsing. Thus, getting a full view of the website this way is a better option. But sometimes, the default auto zoom can really trouble your lay out components. It can make the images or certain layout elements of your website either appear too big or too tiny on your screen. The perfect solution to this is using Meta tagging. It can be added into the document header in certain Android and I-phone devices which actually rearranges it.

This is sometimes also known as viewport Meta tagging, in which a few custom variables are added in the content. Apple has certain meta tag variables present in their documentations which are compatible or made just for the websites opened through I-phone operating systems. The starting scale value is very important as it redirects your website to 100% zoom when you open in on your device.

Designs Used For Touch Devices

Sometimes while producing the layouts or web designs, developers forget that the time of the keyboard mobile phones have long gone. They now need to shift their focus towards smart phones that have a touch system. Instead of having a drop-down menu, it is best to have the menu displayed on the right hand side of the mobile as a single menu since it is easier and comfortable to tap the menus on your right hand side using your right thumb.

Instead of using the jQuery codes, it is much easier to link the menu applications through indent margins. It is really important to increase the size of navigation links. People using mobile phones, do not have big screens or desktops to view the things; so, keep the text on the mobile websites large, readable. This may also be changed when the user might change the mode of viewing from landscape to portrait or vice versa.

Reason for Dynamic Image Scrambling

Images are a very important to any website, as they attract the visitors. Even though not always to stream videos, mobile phone users surely use their mobiles to look for images. When it comes to the layout of a mobile, this surely offends many.

According to the standardized CSS rule, all images should be scaled to maximum width property. The images are always perfect at 100%. If a user re-adjusts the size of his browser smaller than your image, it will automatically re-size its width to best fit the size of the browser. Sadly, the internet explorer does not understand and read this property, so one will have to manually customize the IE stylesheet to get this feature in action.

You can get good and stretched images with the help of Java Script and jQuery plugins. Many of the expert developers have put too much of their time in producing a responsive image content.

Turning On/Off the Extra Toggle Content

Including web forms, active menus, and image sliders, there are certain heavy sizes of text available. The best way to adjust them with the decreasing size of layout is to hide them altogether into a minimized content division. This could be done through either CSS or JavaScript, but the need for JS code is, ultimately, inevitable as it is also needed to create a toggle button.

This is the best solution for keeping your webpage fully lively and rich with media content. Instead of removing the content with drop-down navigation or re-adjusting it, you just have to minimize them into a content div. If someone needs to use those items, they may just tap the toggle on/off button to view or hide them.

The formatting is really simple, interesting and spontaneous to do for touch screen devices. Inside the div, you can put each menu side by side in columns. This would make them even easier to separate. Even if size of the window decreases, they will eventually get in line above and below each other, eventually leading to the increase in height of the window. Then you can slowly lead to the closure of the whole menu with just a single tap. For dynamic image, re-sizing this toggle div is the best option.

Choosing the Custom CSS Designs

It is very important to choose your design or layout for the website and get your content adjusted to it. For example, in case of side bars and content area, you should set their sizes in percentage and let them get adjusted to the layout. But if you set a minimum width, it will eventually lead to the breakage of your side bar content.

So it’s much better to consider making external stylesheets rather than dealing with this problem which might affect your whole design or layout. But there is always a possibility that you might run your content in such a small resolution, that your screen would not be able to extract the content out of it. So, this is the best time to add certain customized CSS properties which will re-format or adjust the content altogether, according to the screen of the device.

What Benefits Responsive Web Design Can Provide?

There are certain different benefits of the using responsive web designs which include:

• They eliminate the need to add different website visitors with different URL’s, using different devices to access the website.
• With different URLs, it becomes difficult to maintain multiple different sites. It can even add to the costs as well.
• It eliminates the need to design different websites for different devices.
• If you need to bring about any changes or modification on any of you web pages, you can do it with responsive web designs. People, not using it, may find themselves having to change multiple websites or pages just to modify a single page or website.
  There are also certain consequences or bad points of using a responsive web design which include:
• Sometimes the web design actually leads you to download certain extra markups which are not necessary. These extra markups only result in extra cost and a waste of space.
• Rather than just adjusting and reformatting the existing website with the help of responsive web design, making and providing a whole website for a mobile device is much more advisable and suitable.
• The websites that are made for mobiles have proved to be more efficient and responsive than the ones made or re-formatted with the help of responsive web designs.

So these benefits and features can make responsive web design a suitable alternative for mobile websites but here you must consider one thing that it does not ends the need for great mobile sites at all.

Image Credits

• News On Mobile Phone via BigStock