Stealth Media Ltd, Auckland

RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN:

If an old lady with her walking stick, suddenly appeared right in the middle of the lane in which you were casually cruising along, and nonchalantly greeted you with a friendly smile and a wave of her hand, we’re pretty sure that you’d respond...by hitting the brakes, or by swerving way out.

We think it’s safe to say that you would not have responded to the old lady’s friendly smile and wave, but rather that you would have responded to the situation. Correct?

That’s the exact purpose of Responsive Web Design.

Websites that have been designed with Responsive Web Design correctly respond to the different display capabilities of different devices, just as you would have correctly responded to the situation in the scenario with the old lady in the middle of the road.

With technology continuously evolving at accelerating speed, the Web and other forms of digital networks have become easily accessible through a vast variety of devices. When the second generation of mobile phones hit the market in the early 90’s, very few would have thought that, by today, mobile phones would not only be used for telephony, but also to surf the internet and do so much more.

The different devices, through which the internet can be accessed, have different display capabilities. Such different display capabilities create different “viewing environments” in which digital content can be displayed.

You might have noticed that when you visit certain sites, the device you use struggle to display all of the images on the site. Or images and text-boxes overlap each other, or you have to scroll up-and-down or from side-to-side to be able to properly view the content of the site.

One of the reasons therefore is that the display capabilities of the device you use have been set, or designed, to display only certain layouts, formats or only certain image sizes etc.

Websites using RWD don’t just open when their links are clicked on, they act.