Responsive Web Design: Top Ten Tips for Designers

Responsive Web Design: Top Ten Tips for Designers - The White Label Agency

Responsive web design, or simply RWD, has become tremendously important over the past several years – and that is understandable, given the fact that the number of people who access the Internet via their portable devices (such as smartphones or tablets) has sky-rocketed over the past decade.

In a nutshell, Responsive Web Design is a form of web design that makes a website more versatile, flexible and user-friendly: the content, as well as the layout of the site, are designed to adapt themselves based on the mobile device used to access the site. If you have decided to incorporate Responsive Web Design into your website in order to increase your website ranking and your monthly traffic, here are the top 10 best tips to consider:

Responsive Web Design: 10 best tips!

Media Queries Are Your New Best Friends

Simply put, media queries are CSS3 features that serve as the backbone of the entire Responsive Web Design approach, as these features identify the type of mobile device users use, and they make the website respond to different variables, based on that device. In other words, the CSS3 media queries analyze the device’s orientation, height, width as well as resolution, in order to adapt the website to its screen.

De-Clutter the Website

Nobody likes cluttered websites: they are overwhelming and time-consuming, and they actually push traffic away instead of attracting it. Having said that, if you want to make your website more mobile-friendly with the help of Responsive Web Design, make sure to eliminate the unnecessary first. This will not only improve the speed of the site, but it will also add to the user experience.

Make the Content Readable

Another very important tip related to Responsive Web Design is to make sure that mobile users never have to squint or to pinch in order to zoom the text and make it readable. Choose the right text size using a tool such as FitText, as it will come in handy for making the text more responsive and user-friendly.

Redesign the Source Code

One of the most common mistakes website owners tend to make in terms of Responsive Web Design is that they focus too much on the aesthetics of the site, neglecting the source code: by removing the unnecessary characters from the website’s source code (like spaces and line breaks), you can dramatically improve the site’s load time.

Focus On Screen Orientation

When implementing Responsive Web Design, make sure to focus on screen orientation: statistically speaking, landscape is far more commonly used than the portrait orientation.

Filter Your Content

Your website is just as good as its content, and making the text readable is not enough: redefine your website’s content, make it more accessible with degradation or progressive enhancement.

Incorporate Sketching Into Your RWD Workflow

The overall layout can make or break your website, this is why it is vital to embed sketching into your Responsive Web Design workflow, for a more organized and user-oriented layout that adapts to all device capabilities, resolutions and screen sizes.

Make Your Site’s Design More Fluid with Breakpoints

Breakpoints should be based on the most popular smartphone and tablet screen sizes – by relying on them, you can add to the adaptability, versatility and the overall flow of your website.

Make Sure the Images Are Scalable

There is nothing more bothersome for a mobile user than to realize the images are stretched – this is why it is important to make sure that the media files are properly scaled, so that they fit both the text size and the viewport.

Keep It Simple

Last, but not least, the golden rule of Responsive Web Design is to keep the design as simple as possible. Make sure that the layout of your website is optimized for the simplest smartphones on the market, even those with small screens. Google algorithms do take this into account when ranking websites.