Mobile devices have absolutely dominated internet browsing in recent years.
Almost every client these days want a mobile version of their website. And who can blame them? With recent statistics from the ACMA suggesting 94% of 18-34 year olds access the internet with their smartphone, it is critical to provide a website layout that’s both visually pleasing and functional for desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach in building layouts that adjust it’s content for an optimal viewing experience for any device and screen size. Perhaps the latest significant revolution in web design, this approach allows designers to easily build a few layouts that could be automatically applied to the appropriate screen size.
RWD solves the sizing issue that is prevalent on mobile devices. Websites that aren’t mobile friendly have the entire webpage squeezed into the width of the device screen. As the webpage gets squeezed, so does the text, images, and buttons. Imagine zooming in just to press a tiny button! This is where RWD fixes this problem.
Instead of squeezing the webpage, RWD adapts the layout to suit the device. A desktop layout that may have a 3 columns, will now have a single column on a mobile device. This trend is observable is most modern websites today, and of course, the PixelForce website.
To see RWD in action, open the PixelForce website in a desktop browser, and slowly resize the browser to be thinner and thinner. You should see the layout and navigation bars change to suit for the new width of the browser. If you observe on a mobile device, text is at a comfortable reading size, and buttons are resized to be easily tapped by the finger.
The web industry is advancing at a fast rate. At one point, all web designers had to do were make their designs look nice for a 4:3 960px wide monitor. Now, with mobile devices being such a dominate internet browsing device, responsive web design is an essential requirement in todays web development.