WHAT RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS
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 e-commerce 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 site for the type of display anticipated, a standardized site design could do justice to any size display.
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