Spending less for designing a multi- platform website is a smarter decision compared to wasting too much time in designing websites for different devices. It always saves time and money to depend on responsive designs of websites that can work for any of the devices with different screen sizes and having modern technologies. According to Jonathan Smiley, the design lead and partner at the product design firm Zurb at Silicon Valley, responsive design has a great role to play in cutting down on the time spent for developing your website and exposing your web content to a wide array of viewers using internet on different types of devices.
With the increasing number of website views from different types of mobile devices like, (Android, iOS), and usage of a number of different web browsers like, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and the good old Internet Explorer, multi- platform websites or responsive websites have almost become a necessity. There are some constantly lingering questions in the mind of business owners about the requirement of responsive web designing. This blog has attempted at finding answers to such questions.
Q.1. Is there really any need for business owners to get bothered about responsive web design?
Responsive design is a technique that is going to stay in the world of SEO for a long time. With the advent of this flexible form of web designing, it becomes comparatively easier for conversion when more and more of the internet users are turning to smaller devices for searching on net. The new age mobile devices are going to rule the world of internet searches for a long time. So, this is high time the business websites should become mobile ready.
Q.2. How much cost effective is the responsive website design, compared to traditional web design?
Apparently responsive web design might seem to be a bit expensive due to the time spent on building websites with such designs. On the other hand, this flexible responsive designing procedure increases usability of the site. The site gets exposure to customers using all sorts of devices. Targeting only the desktop users will reduce the number of potential customers to your website by at least 50 percent by next year. Investing a little more today can earn you a lot in the coming years.
Q.3. What extra efforts are needed for responsive design?
It does not take much other than a little bit of thought and a little more time to make a website design function properly on multiple devices and different browsers. In fact it is much easier and less expensive to build a website with responsive design rather than building device specific sites.
Q.4. What are the challenges to get responsive website design?
The process of creating one single website for multiple devices is tricky. A large degree of iterations and tweaking are required here and there to create the ultimate responsive design for a site that works well for all the large and small devices to work with internet. You might need to swap a landscape-size photo you used on the site with a simple square picture suiting the screens of smartphones. You can replace the “download” button with a button with “learn more” written on it. Mobile users seldom click on the download button. Putting the main categories like, ‘Contact’, ‘Home’, etc on top of the site works when the user is in front of a desktop and not using a smartphone. A vertical list is always effective for viewing and using on the screen of a mobile device.
If responsive design of websites saves the time spent for creating individual site designs for different devices, why should not one choose it for business benefits in the long run?
Michel Tubro is a website designer working in California. In this article, he provides important information regarding California Web Design.