What is a Responsive Website?

What is a Responsive Website?

Many of you must have heard the term ‘responsive website’ recently, from either a friend or web design firm you may be speaking with, but there are still many people who don’t really understand what ‘responsive’ means when it comes to websites. In this article, we’ll discuss what a responsive website is, how a responsive website is a must have and why your website needs to responsive nowadays.

The answer to all 3 is simple: Mobile devices.

A responsive website means the website will re-organize it’s content, images and layout based on the resolution of the screen and device viewing the website. For example, our website looks like this on a normal computer:

But when you view our website on a mobile device, like an iPhone or Galaxy super phone, it will look like this:

As you’ll notice:

1. The top navigation bar has now turned into a simple drop down menu,
2. The logo is centred,
3. The 4 services on the home page are now stacked instead of sitting in a row,
4. The pre-footer text is centred.

Most importantly, you don’t need to scroll horizontally to view any of the elements or text on the page; everything fits perfectly in a vertical row.

Now you may ask “What’s the difference between that and my current website? I can view it on a mobile device!” If your current website is not responsive, yes, chances are you can still see it on a mobile device..but the difference is your website is simply scaled down to fit the screen, so it looks like a smaller version of how your website would look on a computer screen.. right? Scaling is a big pain, mainly because users now have to zoom in to be able to navigate your site and chances are, they won’t be able to click the link they are trying to. This results in a frustrating experience for the user, who will eventually give up and go on to the next website (which is probably responsive!).

More and more people are using smart phones or super phones, and with busy lifestyles, many users (like me) often browse the internet on their phones. They look for services online while waiting for the bus, or even when walking around. If your website isn’t responsive, it simply won’t fit properly on mobile devices and chances are you will lose visitors.