You've probably heard the term Responsive Web Design over and over again. You probably know that you need a responsive website. But when it comes down to it, do you actually know what a responsive website is? 

WHAT IS RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN?

No matter if you're a business owner or website professional, responsive web design can be a confusing concept at first. Have you ever visited a website on your phone and nothing resized to your screen, causing you to have to move the page around and pinch & zoom to find what you were looking for? Then you landed on a website that was NOT responsive. Frustrating experience isn't it?

At its most basic definition, a responsive web design "responds" to the size of the screen you are viewing it on. To really understand how responsive web design works, take your mouse when you're on your desktop or laptop and drag the far right edge of your browser window over to make the width smaller and larger again. Font sizes, image sizes and the placement of those elements on the page adjust fluidly based on the device's screen size. And with so many different devices, there are a number of considerations to be made when designing a responsive website. 

On a widescreen monitor, a full-width banner image may look very large and you may have to scroll down before viewing any additional content, however if you view the same banner image on your phone you may see a smaller image and more content below before you have to scroll down the page. 

WHY IS RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN IMPORTANT?

With mobile device viewers accounting for over 50% of website traffic, responsive website design is one of the most important considerations when embarking on a web design or redesign project. You want your customer or visitor to have the best possible viewing experience no matter what device they may be landing on your business website from. Users want to view sites just as quickly and easily on their mobile-devices as they do on their desktops. 

More importantly, Google reportedly takes into account whether or not your website is optimized for mobile viewing and factors that into your search rankings. So without a responsive website, you risk your site displaying below those sites in the search results that are mobile-friendly.

Mobile website traffic will continue to climb so it's vital for your business to provide the best possible mobile experience to your customers. At M|J Creative, we don't want your mobile experience to be an afterthought. We prefer to take a mobile-first approach, which means we wireframe and design your website for the phone first then adapt the layout for desktops. So no matter what, your customers are getting the best user experience - setting you apart from your competition.

With responsive websites being the industry standard, be sure to take the time to ensure your website design is providing the best user experience across all devices. We can help with that.

Wondering if your website meets the mobile-friendly test?