What is Responsive Web Design?

When I meet with new clients this is a question I hear a lot — “what is responsive web design?”

According to Wikipedia:

Responsive web design (RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Responsive web design is a rapidly growing trend in web site re-designs.  In fact, the year 2013 has already been called “the year of responsive web design” by Mashable.

Why is Responsive Web Design Important

As a small business owner with a website, you might be wondering why a responsive design is important. The reason has to do with the web-viewing habits of your users. Marketing reports show that PC sales are down and tablet sales are up.  More people are viewing your website from a smart phone or a tablet device than ever before.

Have you viewed your website from one of these smaller devices? If so, you will notice that your pages don’t look the same. You have to do a lot of scrolling — both vertically and horizontally — to see all the content. This is not good.  This is why responsive web design was created.

With a responsive site design, the page layout will “respond” to the type of device being used and resize the elements according. Now your website will look great and will be easy to navigate on whatever type of device is used.