Why responsive web design matters
Responsive web design is the current ‘gold standard’ of cross-platform website formats and any good firm offering web design in Bristol should offer responsive sites. A responsive site will look great no matter what device it is being used on, automatically optimising itself with each visit.
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What is responsive web design, and why does it matter? Even some fairly basic answers to these questions will probably be enough to show you why you should consider adopting a responsive approach for your business website.
What is responsive design?
Responsive design is a kind of adaptive web design principle designed for the modern cross-platform era. Until a few years ago mobile sites were an afterthought; now, smartphones and tablets make up a slender majority of internet traffic and viewing a site on these devices is very different to viewing it on a ‘traditional’ computer. Responsive web design avoids problems by using intelligent CSS queries to obtain the basic details of the device used for each visit and changing the way the site is displayed accordingly. Elements will be rearranged and even resized to ensure that every single visitor gets an experience tailored to their device.
The advantage over a mobile site
What is wrong with simply maintaining a separate mobile site, the way that many companies have for years? Actually, there is plenty wrong with this approach. It can be an SEO nightmare, forcing you to jump through hoops to avoid having your ‘two sites’ penalised for duplicate content, but the biggest problem is that this is just not practical any more. There is not just the odd user of a tiny phone screen but thousands of users with a massive range of screen sizes, from small four-inch phones to 10-inch+ tablets. No mobile site is going to look right across the whole range, which is why Bristol web designers Aardvark Creative get best results from responsive websites.
Why does it matter?
Why does appealing to mobile users matter so much? As mentioned above, mobile users now make up a larger amount of web traffic than traditional desktop and laptop users. For any website trying to make a good impression ‒ and what website isn’t? ‒ this means that giving mobile users the best experience is hugely important. This is exactly what responsive web design is for.
