Per an article written by Bryson Meunier with Marketing Land, Responsive web design is a design philosophy and front end development strategy that makes desktop websites accessible on a number of devices through the use of fluid grids, flexible layouts and media queries. Instead of serving your users multiple URLs depending on the device that they’re accessing your site with, responsive web design allows webmasters to design a site once and format it differently for many devices. Because of this, the cost for responsive design is higher than the cost for your normal CSS design and programming.
The benefits are obvious to many. Because sites can be designed once and reformatted, responsive web design eliminates the need to maintain multiple sites, which can sometimes decrease dramatically the costs of going mobile. Responsive web design also makes content available on a single URL, which some SEOs cite as a solution to a duplicate content problem
At InsideDesignOrlando, our Design Wizards are now offering our clients this great new user experience of “Responsive Web Design.” Instead of managing multiple websites for many devices, responsive web design adapts automatically to each user’s device thus providing a more user friendly experience overall. Responsive sites are flexible and detect the device being used immediately offering a satisfying viewing method.
Responsive Web Design Is Not Always the Right Answer!
Many users find that having a dedicated mobile website to be a very different platform than that of the responsive website. The mobile site for instance may load faster based upon less graphic content, etc. Some clients find that having a mobile site may work best for their immediate needs. The answer as to whether responsive site development may work for you is answered as we discover your unique user goals. There may be some instances where mobile-specific content may prove to be the better solution or it may be ok to have both the mobile website as well as the responsive site.
The responsive desktop website and the mobile site may be hosted on a different URLs and this may be the best route for you. This will be determined as you visit for your initial consultation with the designer and programmer. Visit us again for more news and views from our Design Wizards.
Jean Holland-Rose, Chief Creative Officer
InsideDesignOrlando.com
407.405.4877
