Responsive web design (RWD) has become a vital part of the process of completing your online brand, and in many cases is the most important. As information is becoming ever increasingly available at our finger tips, it's important to make sure that you are top of the pile and delivering a great experience.
Over the last few years, the team have worked on a huge array of RWD projects, and we ensure that it is included in every web build we produce, but in doing so, we've picked up a few golden rules that we try and follow.
1. Use real content
This is one of the more important aspects of a web build as a whole and we focus on obtaining this information as early in the project as possible.
The short answer to this though, is to avoid using Lorem Ipsum. Too many times have we popped a few words of Lorem in to fill, only to be presented with a few paragraphs! So, it's important to get this information up front, and then you can design knowing it will all fit in, and conversely, point out that essays aren't great for mobile devices.
2. Plan, plan and plan again
One of the greatest failures of a website is that not enough thought has gone into it. There are a lot of questions that need covering off early on in the process to get everyone thinking about what the purpose of the website is. This will define the direction that design process takes and in turn, how the responsive aspects of the site will function. A responsive website isn't necessarily just the same version of the website set up for a smaller screen, especially if there is a lot of data to pass across that could removed (more on that below), but equally, a desktop response to a site doesn't need to have all of the data that is missing from the mobile site.
With this in mind, it is important to cover off very early on where the goal posts are, and what the website is trying to achieve, which will dictate the direction that the responsive design follows.
3. Cut the fluff
RWD allows a flexible incarnation of a website that adapts to the device that it is being viewed on - but that isn't the end of the story.
Your rankings on Google will improve when Google is happy, and Google is happy when users on your website are happy. How can we make sure they are happy? Well, there are a few important aspects: relevant content that is useful to the user will make them happy; a great user experience will make the user happy; but in terms of what we are discussing, the most important aspect is that a fast site will make a user happy.
We are not accustomed to waiting for websites to load - if it cannot provide what we are looking for quickly and efficiently, we are likely to go elsewhere. To this end, it is important to ensure the responsive web does not just provide a mobile friendly design to the user, but also a mobile friendly delivery to the user. Minimising stylesheets and javascript is a must (if you aren't already doing that for desktop content), as well as considering if you are delivering style and script to a mobile device that serves no function upon that device. There are tools out there that allow you to tailor what is delivered to the mobile device to ensure quick and efficient delivery.
Conclusion
RWD is not just another part of the process, it has come to define the process and get us thinking about exactly what we are doing for a website build. It allows us to keep your clients happy and in turn keep Google happy, and increase brand awareness and engagement.
This ensures the flexibility of websites to provide a great user experience on the growing multitude of devices, so it's important, if you haven't already, to jump on board and help continue to make a better web.