Is Your Site Smart Enough?

We hear the words "responsive design" being thrown around about web projects a lot lately. You know... at the local bar, in the stands at Phillies games, at the Katy Perry concert, all over the place. Surely all your friends are talking about it too, right? No?

It’s a term you’re no doubt going to hear more and more of in the future when you consider a web project, so lets take a moment to shed some light on the idea and take a look at why it may or may not be appropriate for you.

Responsive or adaptive methodology itself is not a trend or a new invention, it's more of an idea or progressive way of thinking. For an easy example consider our fearless leader and Creative Director, Mike Gadsby. Mike has transition lenses in his glasses that quickly adjust to changing UV conditions, protecting his eyes from the sun, and his employees from his Superman-like heat vision. Mike doesn’t have to change his glasses when he’s inside, outside, or uh... anywhere else. The specs just work, all the time.

So, how does this translate into web design? Well, currently most websites are designed for a computer screen with a completely different (usually second class) experience for mobile users. Not so with responsive design. A user gets a tailored experience when they view a website across different mediums such as a smartphone, tablet, computer or any other web browsing device. Basically, when designing a responsive site, the designer makes sure that your site is “smart” enough to know what type of device is looking at it, and at what resolution, and the site will make adjustments to its layout on the fly to make sure it provides an optimal experience to the visitor. For an example, take a look at this site. Now resize your browser window. Go ahead and drag it all over the place, make it the size of your cell-phone screen. Web design shops like us have the awesome challenge of creating sites that deliver a quality experience to your sister on her Blackberry, your cousin surfing on his iPad, your 8 year old nephew on his Android phone, and responsive design is one of the best ways to do it. You know who won’t benefit from this (or any other new developments in web design?) Your Grandmom running Internet Explorer 6. IE6 is bad. Seriously. Stop letting your Grandmom use IE6.

The important part for businesses is the ease with which a potential customer, client, or partner can access the information he or she is looking for. Think about it, how many times have you been on your mobile and followed a link someone tweeted and ended up at some terribly designed site that took minutes to load and involved more pinching and swiping than actual reading? It sucks.

Responsive design isn’t the be-all end-all answer though. Just because something is new and shiny doesn’t always mean it’s the best thing for you. Right, Apple? Building a fluid design framework for a responsive site can be roughly equated to doing three sites worth of work when you could do just one. The good part? It’s as close to “future-proofing” the site as you can get. The flip side? It’s not free, and depending on your project, budget, timeline, and target market, it just may not make sense right now.

If you’d like to get into more detail, or want to know if responsive makes sense for your site and business, hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, or right over here.