Why you need Responsive Web Design

Did you know that by the end of 2015, there will be more people accessing the internet on their phones than on laptops or desktops combined?

This is why responsive web design is a vital component for a fully functioning business presence. Let’s use an analogy. If you’re a pizza business, you’d probably want to have speedy little motorbikes or cycle couriers to get pizzas to the people who order them. But your raw materials: flour and oil and tomato puree … they need to arrive in trucks and lorries, right? Similarly, people use different screens and different devices for different purposes – but unlike our pizza firm, it’s impossible for the average business to know who’s using what device for what reason. A top CEO might be checking contracts on his mobile in traffic, while his schoolgirl daughter is at home, browsing nail polish hacks on his state-of-the-art wide screen desktop computer!

So a website has to work for all viewers, at all times, on all devices. The secret to this is coding – sophisticated design that instantaneously checks out the size of the screen on which it’s being viewed and adjusts itself to the dimensions of this screen.

What does responsive web design mean in practice?

Several things:

• Utility – sites have to work. Buttons have to appear on the screen, not be skewed off the edge. Banners have to be shaped so they look great on tiny screens as well as big ones. People need to be able to sign up, or to pay for their goods, or to find an email address or phone number and use their chosen form of communication immediately. A website that isn’t responsive means your buttons vanish, your banners are malformed and people can’t access the areas of your site that generate your income.
• Attractiveness – sites that don’t look good don’t get business. People make up their mind about a website in between 6-10 seconds. Slow to load, wonky or ugly sites just don’t get a second chance.
• Improved user experience – websites need to reward the user. That doesn’t mean giving away free stuff (although you can), it means that the actual process of using the site has to be rewarding. Users should enjoy the various functions on your website, and that means those functions have to be optimised for every possible device.
• Investment in the future – how many of your potential clients have a tablet? An Apple Watch? You don’t know and nor does anybody else. This area of technology moves so fast that nobody can predict it, but we can prepare for it. A responsive website adjusts to whatever the future throws at it, so you can trust it to do the job it was designed for.
• Google friendly – the world’s most dominant search engine says websites should be responsive. If yours isn’t, you’re definitely getting penalised by Google.

How to get started with responsive web design

We highly recommend designing your website to be responsive. We create bespoke responsive designs that will work for you today, tomorrow and into the future.