What is Responsive Web Design?

Have you ever experienced the following dilemma? You get a file via e-mail – say, an Excel spreadsheet – and try to open it. There’s just one problem, you have a Mac. Fortunately, you can open it via other methods like Google Documents or Apple’s Numbers application. But even in this day and age, this can be a time-consuming ordeal. Strange, isn’t it?

Well, the same problem can arise with your web site. Back in the good old days when 100% of users viewed web pages on PCs or laptops, a web designer’s main challenge was getting it to look good on different browsers. And even then they only really had to worry about Explorer and Firefox (although Chrome and Safari are, of course, popular.)

Now, however, a majority of users are surfing the internet on their mobile phones, which poses huge web design issues. First, of course, you need to make sure that a web page that looks good on a PC looks good on a phone. Second, you need to make sure it looks good on different types of phones and tablets. This, in a nutshell, is what designers mean by “responsive web design,” building a web architecture that adapts to the device and proves the best user experience possible across all platforms.

As website designers, we can make this highly challenging goal a reality for your business.