Now that you know more about responsive design and how it might influence your business in the long run, it is just the time to review important elements to consider before you get started with making your site responsive.
Choose a Flexible Grid
Responsive websites are created on flexible grids, meaning that you will not need to cover all the device sizes and create a separate pixel layout for each of them. With such a large number of different devices with various sizes and resolutions, it will be impossible to build so many layouts. Besides, not all people have a maximized browser window on their laptops. Here’s where a flexible grid is of great help. Adding a breakpoint and changing the design whenever the content does not fit well are the only things needed. For instance, when the line length is too long to be read as the screen size is getting bigger, or when a box gets squeezed with 2 words on every line when the screen narrows.
Consider Touchscreens
Nowadays there are touchscreens even in laptops making it necessary to design websites for those using a mouse and people who prefer touchscreens. For example, if there is a form with a drop–down menu on the desktop website view, consider making it bigger for mobile devices to be easily pressed. Things like buttons may not be accessible enough on smartphones, so they should be implemented and displayed properly.
Decide on the Elements
Responsive design doesn’t always call for website replication. You are looking to provide a great experience for your visitors, and leaving some elements out might be a necessity to make your website look great on smaller devices.
Websites using responsive design will most likely condense some elements, like menu and navigation, into a button to let users open it with a single click. While the site menu, as a rule, is expanded when designed for larger screens, there is no harm in placing it behind the button when creating a mobile version. You can as well set certain rules for either including website elements or leaving them out by modifying the site’s codes, like CSS.
Think of the Images
As the mobile version should be as bright and colorful as the desktop one, having all the images in place, you need to create rules in the CSS code that will determine how all the images will be treated when displayed on different screens. Images can be left in their full width, removed, or customized according to certain screen resolutions. Make sure to invest some time into setting the rules to avoid broken, wrongly cropped, or unclear images.
Check Pre–designed Themes
Themes and layouts that are pre–designed and ready–to–use are of great help when there is no time or resources to design a responsive website from scratch. A few things left to do is adjust the style to match the company’s branding, choose the right colors, and place your content.
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