Is Responsive Web Design a Must?

T

Tony Hardy

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Responsive web design has been sweeping the web. Which of us designers are embracing it? Which business owners among you are embracing it?

Is it a MUST have for the coming years, or does it depend on your target audience?
 
Is responsive web design a must....no
Is mobile friendly web design a must.... yes

why the separation you may ask, because you don't need to do a responsive website to embrace mobile browsers, you can do separate style sheets for mobile, print and desktop, you can do responsive and you can also do a mobile site or a mobile app. There might be some other options too but ultimately you have choices, which is best really depends on the site.

Personally I'm trying to embrace responsive web design, html5 (flash is only going to be used for video fall back) and css3 with my new site that I'm working on, it's still not as 'efficient' as it could be because a lot of the browsers still require us to use moz or webkit versions of the css3 standards because, some haven't been ratified not to mention ie's shortcomings. Then there's the fact there is no 'retina' standard meaning you need to use media queries or a script to cover 'high res' images.

Do I think it's worth it, probably in the long run, I just wish they'd hurry up and standardise the damn thing lol.
 
I have been proposing responsive websites to my clients for about a year now, and they generally go for it, mostly because they are mobile device owners and they want to stay "up to date." At this stage though, I can't tell if this is a definitive solution. We certainly need some kind of mobile-website version, whether is adaptive, responsive, an app or what it will come next. But I don't know if responsive design is a solution.
When I have people running some tests on their phones to get feedback, I noticed that they always try to enlarge the images on the website (which of course don't get bigger, since the website is responsive). Besides, in order to make a responsive website functional, I sometimes have to hide part of the contents. This way, I sacrifice a complete "content experience" for a better "user experience." This clearly can't be an ultimate solution for mobile web. I am curious to see how this field will evolve in the near future.
 
I think responsive/mobile websites should be embraced and encouraged with all the websites I now do. I agree with Levi, I think until the web is standardised it'll be difficult to get everything perfectly right, but it's definitely worth pushing now.
I think most clients who are technically aware want their site to be viewed properly in mobile devices, but there are a lot of numptys out there who just don't know what the hell you mean when you say 'responsive' or mobile friendly. Irritating really!
It's certainly a must, that's the way the web is going. I don't think mobile app versions of sites will do it though. It's inconvenient in my opinion.
I've yet to convert my site, but it's on my list of things to do! It's one of those 'I'll so it after this project' scenarios but there's always another project! It'd be good to post some top examples. There's a lot of these 'tabbed' mobile websites popping up, using things like GoMobi (crap!), that you can just enter your details in like services, opening times, contact info etc, but those are pure crap and really piss me off! It's not design, it's laziness!
 
Levi said:
Is responsive web design a must....no
Is mobile friendly web design a must.... yes

why the separation you may ask, because you don't need to do a responsive website to embrace mobile browsers, you can do separate style sheets for mobile, print and desktop, you can do responsive and you can also do a mobile site or a mobile app. There might be some other options too but ultimately you have choices, which is best really depends on the site.

Personally I'm trying to embrace responsive web design, html5 (flash is only going to be used for video fall back) and css3 with my new site that I'm working on, it's still not as 'efficient' as it could be because a lot of the browsers still require us to use moz or webkit versions of the css3 standards because, some haven't been ratified not to mention ie's shortcomings. Then there's the fact there is no 'retina' standard meaning you need to use media queries or a script to cover 'high res' images.

Do I think it's worth it, probably in the long run, I just wish they'd hurry up and standardise the damn thing lol.
Click to expand...

Agreed with Levi on this one, if you can design a one size fits all site then great but all of the big sites will have a separate site rather than just separate style sheet and increasingly this extends to being device specific.
A good one is rightmove.co.uk they’ve got the mobile site down boiiiii!
 
There's no point in m.whateverdomain.com sites though. Twice the work to maintain, twice the work to optimise for, halving your link strategy.

If you're going to do it, invest in a responsive site and be done with it.
 
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