Responsive Web Design
Published on November 24th, 2014
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Responsive Web Design
In the online world, constant changes are always happening. New ways to do things, better ways, more innovative than ever – in the way we build and create websites. One of the most impressive and surely needed upgrades to the world wide web was Responsive Web Design.
So what, exactly, is responsive web design, and why is it so fantastic?
Why is it so fantastic?
There are many reasons – but lets start with what exactly it is.
Responsive Web Design is a website that is built to work on any screen resolution, be it the size of a tiny screen on a phone, to many portable gaming devices, tablets, the humble laptop and desktop computers, all the way up to the truly giant television screens in a modern lounge room.
In the past, in order to access sites on the correct resolution, oftentimes developers either entered the content on the website so that it sat in the middle of the screen, or they made multiple different websites to accommodate many screen resolutions. This, of course, was a very time consuming process for a developer to make many different websites for many different screen resolutions.
Why is it so important?
The development of web languages such as CSS and HTML5 began the process towards responsive design. With constant upgrades being done to CSS that made designing websites even easier than before, HTML5 and CSS work in perfect harmony to bring the best, and easiest, results to developers.
With the birth of smart phones and tablets saw the end of the flash era. Flash applications, websites and plugins could no longer work on these devices. Something had to be done, and fast, in order to not loose consumers to what would become something we are beginning to wonder how we lived without before.
At first, people began to simply use the old model of multiple websites, and simply made a mobile friendly version of their existing websites. However, this was beginning to prove cumbersome as far as updates went. While synchronisation of data was entirely possible, developers were beginning to loathe the almighty smart phones and tablets. Users, too, were crying out from the lack of compatibility.
And thus, Responsive Web Design was born.
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What does it mean?
With the ability to change to any size whatsoever within the parametres of smart phones to giant TV screens, this new technology took off. Everyone began to switch their old websites to this new technology as the tablet and smart phone boom exploded onto the consumer market. Responsive Web Design became but a standard of what a Web Developer needed to know in order to create a website.
Why is Responsive Web Design so important for businesses now?
It doesn’t matter what generation people are in or how old they are. People are quickly realising the convenience of having either a tablet, a smartphone or both. More and more people are purchasing these devices. And even more people are swapping the humble newspaper to browsing the internet. They use their devices on the way to and from work, during coffee breaks and lunch time. They also communicate through social media. The internet age is huge, and companies big and small are investing in this new technology the more popular it becomes.
Evolving for mobile devices
Part of owning a website also means keeping up with the times. Technology is advancing at a frightening pace. And so businesses must keep up in order to attract the largest amount of consumers they can. That is the simple truth behind the internet and technology both. Not only the tablets and smartphones have driven the boom in Responsive Web Design. Screens for computers and laptops have changed sizes dramatically over the years. Now nearly no one owns the what was normal 15” and 17” screens. They are all different, and are growing bigger every day.