Cullen Fischel of Cleveland is an entrepreneur and web developer. In the following article, Cullen Fischel explains responsive design for websites, and how any business will benefit from utilizing this technique.

With more web users glued to their phones than ever before, websites failing to incorporate responsive web design actively risk plunging into the depths of obscurity. Unfortunately, not all business owners actually understand how responsive design works, let alone its key benefits.

Responsive web design uses basic coding practices to allow modern websites to be equally functional on all devices, regardless of their shape or size. This provides users with a more accessible and functional webpage, regardless of their preferred form of browsing. To work effectively, however, the site must be planned to use responsive design from the ground up.

Likewise, Cullen Fischel of Cleveland says that those wishing to incorporate responsive design into creating a company webpage may benefit from a ground-up understanding of the technique, beginning with the fundamentals of how it works.

How Responsive Design Works

Cullen Fischel of Cleveland explains that responsive design resizes webpages with fluidly adaptive text to accommodate the size of the window or device being operated by a user. Whether viewing a page on their phone, laptop, or tablet, users should be presented with a site that is easily navigable and populated with text they can read comfortably.

Many associate the growing importance of responsive design with the ubiquity of smartphones. In theory, however, Cullen says that this approach technically predates smartphones’ popularity. While smart devices became popular with the release of the iPhone in 2007, HTML became a standard in web design roughly eight years prior.

In its basic form, responsive web design requires nothing more than basic HTML literacy. A page designed in HTML alone will adjust its text to fit any window the user resizes. Nonetheless, responsive design works best when incorporating CSS queries to fit the text into the page more comfortably for the benefit of readers.

In fact, when web designer Ethan Marcotte first coined the term “responsive design” back in 2010, he was referencing a practice known as “responsive architecture” in which physical spaces reshape themselves in response to human presence. This makes CSS queries inherently vital, as a responsive design that ignores the user’s comfort is not truly responsive.

Key Benefits of Responsive Web Design

Marcotte didn’t simply suggest responsive design because he felt inspired by a nifty architectural idea. As a professional designer well attuned to the needs and wants of both users and clients, he understood the value of responsive web design’s strategic advantages. Cullen Fischel of Cleveland says that some key benefits include:

• User accessibility across all devices
• A more comfortable user experience
• Money saved on mobile-specific site versions
• Only one website in need of regular maintenance
• Better search engine optimization

Interestingly, not all of these benefits existed when Marcotte coined the phrase in 2010. Responsive websites rank higher on search engines like Google because those companies have adapted to reward their user appeal as they became more widely used. This means those failing to incorporate responsive web design will quickly fall behind their competitors.

Cullen Fischel of Cleveland says that companies that do run responsive websites, however, may greatly improve their search rankings. Combine this with the easy navigability provided to potential consumers, along with the money saved from only maintaining one website, as opposed to both computer and mobile versions, and responsive design stands to greatly increase profit margins.

How to Incorporate Responsive Design

In spite of its many benefits, Cullen Fischel of Cleveland says that responsive web design is not without its drawbacks. To be more accurate, the approach ends up doing more harm than good if the page is designed poorly. This is why successful incorporation has to be done from the ground up, rather than as a haphazard patch job. Any element that was coded without responsive design in mind from the beginning may lead to issues such as:

• Harder navigation if the aesthetic layout is too PC-specific
• Longer development periods in the hands of inexperienced designers
• Slow loading times when using high-resolution images not suited for responsive design

To be clear, Cullen Fischel of Cleveland says that responsive design is technically possible under any and all circumstances. All layouts, images, and typography can be scaled to fit any device. When designed without a responsive approach in mind, however, they may appear aesthetically displeasing and difficult to navigate. Responsive design must be the goal from stage one.

Conclusion

Any company or self-employed contractor is capable of reaping the benefits of responsive design. If going it alone, however, they must ensure that every element of web design is geared toward user response from the initial planning stages. If outsourcing the web design to a freelancer or design firm, they’ll want someone proficient and experienced with CSS to truly succeed.