What is responsive web design?
Responsive web design refers to the approach of building a web design that provides optimal and customized viewing and interaction experience on any screen, browser or devise size (including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones).
Why is responsive web design important?
Consider this: "More than 75 percent of all Americans who use the Internet (age 18+) now access digital content on both desktop and mobile devices, which is an increase from 68 percent from a year ago."- Commscore
Even more startling is the amount of millennials who only use a mobile device to access the Internet, which is up to 21% in 2016!
Mobile internet usage is only going to continue to explode, making it clear that having a mobile responsive web design is becoming more important than ever before.
Designing for different screen sizes:
With a multitude of different devices on the market - from iphones, to androids, tablets to laptops, desktop computers and everything in between - it is important that your website will adapt to look good on any screen size or device. For example, on a phone, your site might appear in one scrollable column, while on a tablet or laptop, the same content might display in two or three columns.
How can you tell if a website uses responsive web design?
A good test (if you are on a laptop or desktop) is to grab the edge of the browser window with your cursor and drag it to the left. Do you notice how the content and elements adjust as the window gets smaller? If the website adjusts to display differently on different screen and browser sizes as you change the dimensions, then it is a responsive web design. Dragging the window to its minimum width will you a good idea of what it looks like on a mobile phone.
How to make a responsive website
Now that we’ve established what a mobile responsive web design is and why responsive web design is important, let’s dive into a quick responsive design tutorial.
CSS Responsive Media Queries: CSS Media queries are basic filters that are added to your CSS stylesheet to target specific classes, IDs and elements to change based on different browser widths.
For example, if you want the font size of your h1 element to change only in smaller phone browsers, you would use something like:
@media only screen and ( max-width: 479px ) {
h1 {font-size:24px;}
}
For more information on CSS media queries and a full responsive design tutorial, visit Google Developers.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve found our article on responsive web design helpful. At Blennd we understand the importance of responsive web design and incorporate mobile responsive best practices into every web design project we take on. If you are looking for a dedicated responsive web design Denver agency serving all of Colorado and beyond, you’ve come to the right place. Contact our team of mobile responsive design experts to discuss your next web design project today!
