The What, How, and Why of Responsive Web Design
As we may all know, the current generation we are in have smartphones in a whole different level. Gone are the days where it’s just for texts and calls. It has extended to a couple of more purposes, with internet and social media browsing as the most notable.
When you dig a little deeper, you can even say that being able to do both is not enough for many users.
It was evident in SEOcial’s survey of 5,388 smartphone and tablet users, wherein 48% said they thought websites in mobile devices were not well-optimized.
In the corporate world, a business website is a useful marketing tool to present information of their products and services as it also plays a significant role in making their presence available online, building revenue and attracting their potential clients to be partners. But with the advent of mobile phones as a first choice device in browsing the internet, these websites should be responsive and mobile-friendly, too.
If that’s the case, how should one’s website stand out among the others?
We’re introducing to you the Mobile Responsive Web Design.
What is Mobile Responsive Web Design?
Sure, there are websites that have accessible mobile templates, but this can be still hard to navigate sometimes as these websites are not mobile friendly. In mobile responsive design, the whole layout was designed to fit into the screen of the mobile device. The will website respond to the screen of the device depending on its screen resolution and orientation, making it easier to navigate.
How Does Mobile Responsive Web Design Work?
- One Code for One Website – Using a single code for a website from the desktop version to mobile version that will be adaptable to many devices.
- Media Queries – Media queries are a series of codes that check the height and width of the device and screen orientation – a key part in building a responsive website.
- Flexible Images – When an image is placed into a smaller device, will the resolution be lower than original? With mobile responsive web design, the images will be flexible enough to retain its actual resolution.
Why Go For Mobile Responsive Web Design?
According to Pew Research Center, a well-renowned research institute in the U.S., 55% of mobile owners go online using their phones. It is expected that this year’s mobile internet usage will overtake the desktop internet usage. Given this information, having a responsive mobile web design should be worthy of your consideration for several reasons:
1. It is highly recommended by Google.
On April 21, 2015, Google announced that “The mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages… in mobile search results worldwide.” They then added that they prefer and recommend a responsive web design pattern. To determine if the site is mobile-friendly or not, Google will run algorithm tests on a website by checking each page and loading responsive elements and making sure that the content is readable and flexible.
2. Many users are opting for a responsive mobile web design.
Most users will leave the website if it’s not mobile friendly. A website where have to zoom and pinch in just to see the information you need is definitely a hassle as it can cause slow performance of the website. In mobile responsive web design, there’s no need to do that as the layout is specifically designed for mobile browsing.
3. Cost Effective
Having a responsive mobile design reduces the need for multiple sites as the layout is created to be adaptable to each device, hence minimizing the cost while maximizing its efficiency.
4. Attract more visitors who can be your future clients.
The number of mobile users consistently growing, there’s a good chance that a potential client have come across your website but decided to leave because they had a hard time navigating your ‘unresponsive’ website. With a responsive mobile website, those occurrences will most definitely be minimized.
Conclusion:
Soon enough, mobile users will dominate the desktop users in terms of internet usage. A responsive mobile web design is an essential requirement in today’s web standards as it aims to deliver a qualitative content and provide its user a better experience when they view a website in their mobile devices.
If you don’t want to lose sight of potential clients, consider having a mobile responsive web design available for your website now. It’s a decision that will surely benefit you and your audience.
Tags: Mobile Web, philippine web design, responsive web design, web design