ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

What Responsive Web Design can do for your Business

Updated on July 19, 2012

Responsive web design, or RWD, is gaining traction as many website owners scramble to find a way to capitalize on the steadily increasing number of mobile device users.

Is RWD really the best way to address the issue of proper display on a variety of devices, from PCs to smart-phones? Absolutely!

Why Build a Responsive Web Design?

As the number of users logging on from mobile phones and tablets increased, smart site owners, many of them in the ecommerce sector, realized that they must quickly find a way to reclaim that market segment.

Sites built for display on a PC, even if cross-browser capability was incorporated, still provided an essentially unusable experience on small mobile devices. Redesigning was still not entirely satisfactory, so some simply built a second site, specifically for mobile.

Duplicate sites presented their own problems, of course, but some considered the risks acceptable… at least more acceptable than losing a large portion of their market share.

A separate site meant additional expense, both at the outset and ongoing. There were many negative impacts and limited benefits. To make matters worse, it still only satisfied some mobile display issues. In short, it wasn’t a solution; it was only a band-aid.

Doing Things the Right Way

With the advent of HTML5 +CSS3, it seemed there might be a better way to accomplish what very few had managed, and to do it with a single site. And HTML5 got enough attention that people began to take notice.

Then, when W3C added media queries to the mix, some developers realized the possibilities and decided to put it to the test. Perhaps instead of designing a sight for the type of display anticipated, a standardized site design could do justice to any size display.

How does RWD work?

The main concept of RWD is to create a basic design, and make it adaptive by overriding the layout structure with your CSS, creating a fluid layout, dependent upon the viewport of the displaying device.

Thus, an iPhone may display a one column layout, while a tablet shows two-columns and a PC shows four… all via the CSS3 with media queries.

With HTML5+CSS3, this is enabled by encapsulating the header, footer, sidebar and content in a page-wrap container. The HTML5 elements are then reset to block.

The basic design is handled in the standard CSS, but various CSS3 elements are chosen by media queries, to customize the fluid layout to the device being served.

Finally, the display widths of various elements are set by a percentage of the standard, to suit each mobile device, the same as is done with images and embedded videos.

What are the benefits?

The benefits are numerous, even without comparing it to the building of a redundant website, just to accommodate some of the more common mobile devices. In fact, this increased versatility is achieved via a design effort that is less complex than many which don’t even consider mobile devices in their design.

The two most prominent advantages to responsive web design are:

1. A single design will display appropriately on a broad variety of devices, from a 2560px PC to a 320px iPhone or beyond;

2. The “baseline”, or basic design utilized will serve for some time, in spite of the addition of new options in display devices.

As an added benefit, future changes to usability and accessibility standards, or the addition of new devices of different display parameters won’t necessitate a site redesign. A simple CSS3 edit will accommodate the additions.

Granted, responsive web design was extremely challenging early on. The grid system wasn’t compatible with semantic markup, making workarounds a necessity. And in order to achieve a fluid layout, further workarounds were necessary.

Such growing pains are normal, as new technologies emerge and the bugs get worked out. Those issues are now behind us, but as semantic responsive web design continues to evolve, more issues may surface. Those too, will be overcome.

To be successful with an online business today, having a website that is designed to be responsive to all potential display devices is a must. And the smart site owners are pursuing semantic responsive web design, as that is where the future lies.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)