Tips for Designing a Responsive Website

A responsive website design allows your content to be viewed by virtually any device without excessive scrolling in order to see the content. In an ever-changing world such as our own, mobile devices are making up a fair share of the Internet usage reported by many analytical reports. Although a large portion of tablets can handle 1200+ pixels for viewing websites, many smartphones don’t. A responsive website sees this device and alters its appearance in order to fit the user’s screen. Although there are a lot of coding tips and tricks you can use in order to make your site more device-friendly, there are several things you can do on your site to help visitors view the content.
Responsive design

No Set Sizes

Many websites have a fixed size in pixels for width and height. For instance, if your site has a table or container that is 1200 pixels across in order to host your content, devices that can only view 800×600 will have to scroll around your site to read the content.

Instead, use percentages for screen sizes. If you still want the 1200 pixel look on a screen that is 1680, then you would want the table width to be around 92%. This will allow the visitor to see the background, and the content would shrink down to the width of the viewable screen by the device. Using percentages in your design is referred to as a liquid layout for it can shape itself depending on the visitor’s requirements.

Image Responsiveness

By allowing your images to be scaled with percentages, they can be made to fit the screen size of any device that visits your site. By using the “max-width” command in CSS, you can change the percentage of how wide your image will be depending on the viewable display of the device.

Using Your Browser

Using Your Browser

As you can reshape your browser to a variety of sizes, it is the perfect tool to show you how your website would look on smaller screens. If you use your web browsers to create your website, you are able to see what effect your images will have in a variety of ways. This is a great method to see how your max-width command works with images and the way CSS can manipulate your site to give the visitor the best experience possible.

Using @media in CSS

Using CSS3, the @media command gives you quite a bit of control over how your website interacts with visitors. From the @media command regarding individual pixel sizes, you can change the font size to become more legible, change the size of your site’s container to fit perfectly within a screen, or alter the size of an image for easier viewing.

Rethink Navigation

Rethink Navigation

Some websites have a navigation bar that simply won’t fit across a small viewable screen. One method that many are looking into is getting rid of the navigation bar all-together. Links can be placed elsewhere for specific content and still make the website navigable.

Nobody’s Perfect

With the wide range of operating systems, browsers, and Internet capabilities it is next to impossible to please everyone. The best you can do is make sure your content is viewable by the majority.

Gearing for the future may take a complete over-haul of your website if you plan to stay competitive. Your site must be able to accommodate the majority of your visitors, if not all of them. It is time to devise a strategy in order to make your site more device-friendly and functional for your visitors. Examine the possibilities and show your competition that they need to step up their game.

 

you can also check 60 Responsive Web Design Inspirations

Leave a Comment