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Designers, as well as developers, were urged to use responsive web design in 2010. (RWD). Instead of adapting our ideas for each device, we might consider all devices as being a part of the same experience.
Website developers and designers can increase their websites' mobile compatibility.
Understanding everything, there is to know about responsive web design can help you come up with better designs for the individuals who matter most: your users.
We'll go through fantastic examples of responsive website design so you can feel motivated to start creating your own prototypes. We'll also go over some recommended practices for developing them with your prototyping programme that is useful to know.
Today, responsive web design has existed for eight years. Providing a consistent and customized experience across all devices, even ones that haven't yet been published, has become common practice.
Responsive web design: what is it? Which websites best demonstrate mobile responsive design?
What Is Responsive Web Design?
The growing reliance on screens and some other devices in the twenty-first century is addressed through responsive design.
With responsive design, a single framework is developed for all devices, no matter how small or large, in an effort to address the issue of different screen sizes.
No matter what device you choose to access, you will have a consistent user experience. No matter what device you use to view it—whether it is an iPhone or a laptop—you should be able to obtain the content you need.
These limitations must be considered by UX designers in order to create effective designs. Doing this could have a significant impact on how users interact with your mobile application or website application.
Imagine using your phone to browse your favorite website and discovering elements that are dispersed over the screen, calls to action that are ineffective, or fonts that are too huge.
It's not enjoyable, is it? Responsive design can address these typical issues. Simply put, a responsive design means that your website should look amazing, be simple to use and work on any device, no matter what resolution it has.
Responsive Design: 5 Best Practices
Let's get down to the basics. There are some essential things to remember when designing a responsive website. These are our top five tips for responsive web design.
Responsive Vs Fluid Layouts
Although they are not the same, fluid design as well as responsive design are sometimes used synonymously in discussions of mobile-first design.
Responsive design, as we've already mentioned, uses fixed units to establish the point at which UI content scales up and down. Depending on what screen you are seeing it on, fluid design automatically adjusts the content's size using percentages.
Although the fluid design may seem alluring, you should exercise caution. The appearance of fluid designs might vary based on the size of the browser or the type of device being utilized.
For instance, content may be hard to read or jumbled on a small screen. If the screen is excessively large, some items may appear stretched out or deformed.
For building responsive websites, the CISIN website prototyping tool is perfect. One prototype can even contain many screens.
To make sure that your design responds to the needs of the user, we advise responsive design above fluid design. You should start by taking responsiveness into account when designing the product's website.
At Least Three Breakpoints Are Recommended
CSS breakpoints are components that change how content is displayed at various resolutions. In responsive web design, these are typically constructed with min-width as well as max-width settings.
These speak of the pixel or element's maximum or minimum width.
According to research, responsive websites require at minimum three to four breakpoints to work successfully. Any responsive website can be resized in your browser.
The content will adjust to whatever size you have set for it. More breakpoints are available for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. However, you should always be able to break down the breakpoints for all three.
Begin With Minimum-Width Breakpoints
Every breakpoint within your responsive web design will include a min-width and a maximum width, as was already explained.
Design from the minimum width for each of your three breakpoints as a general rule when using the mobile-first strategy, which is strongly advised. By including content and UI components on the larger screens, you may design the panels for smaller devices. Scale always moves more readily upward then downward.
Prioritize Content
Responsive design is all about content. If you are following the mobile-first recommendation, you will need to prioritize content and increase the content size.
According to the Interaction Design Foundation, mobile consumers prefer shorter, more straightforward interactions. They will look for more focused material. A seamless user experience can be made using this. Your website may require the inclusion of specific material.
Expandable or foldable menus may be advantageous in certain circumstances.
You Should Take Buttons Very Seriously
A button design is necessary for responsive design. It could be straightforward to use a mouse to click a button on a desktop.
A tablet, what about it? Perhaps a cell phone? With the finger, a mouse's precision is less precise. This umbrella also includes links and clickable elements. If the click area is too small, your users might become irritated.
The typical finger tap has a size of 44x44 pixels, according to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. Make the necessary adjustments to your buttons as well as clickable locations to make them simpler for users to use.
Read More: The Guide to Responsive Web Design in 2023
Three Defining Characteristics Of Responsive Websites Are
Media Queries
A media query, according to the researcher, enables researchers to focus on particular device classes and examine the devices' physical attributes.
Developers can just use Media queries to conditionally change site designs based on the characteristics of the device.
Setting breakpoints in HTML/CSS is not the best method to tailor the experience.
Fluid Grids
CSS can be used to construct flexible grids. The columns change to fit the size of the screen or browser window.
No matter whether the device the user is using—a 21-inch desktop, a 13-inch laptop, a 13.7-inch tablet, or a 5.5-inch smartphone—this is applicable. Fluid layouts, according to research, provide users control placed above a white their designs and surfing preferences.
This allows designers to keep the same aesthetic across all devices. By enabling website designers to update only one version rather than several, it saves lots of time and money for everyone.
Flexible Visuals
This code stops rich media files from growing larger than their containers and stops Search-Engine Friendly from using more viewports than necessary.
According to the researcher, the flexible container's changing size alters the internal image. Given the 8.48B devices now in use, this functionality enables teams to produce timeless designs that can be adapted to any device, regardless of size or shape.
Design professionals can build responsive websites using these three Features kinds.
But that's not all, according to research: "Media Queries, fluid Grids, and adaptable Images are the technical components for responsive website design.
However, it necessitates a shift in perspective. Instead of dividing our material into experiences tailored to various devices, media queries can be employed to improve our work in various viewing contexts.
We have some responsive web design examples that go above and beyond what is necessary. Every website offers a different experience that is adapted to the user's situation.
This outstanding collection contains both client work like Microsoft, Disney, Currys, and Starbucks, as well as future-friendly internal projects like The Next Web or Time, as well as personal projects that can be completed without any client supervision.
25 Powerful Examples Of Responsive Web Design Listed In Alphabetical Order
#01. Ableton
"That have never seen Futura utilized with such bravery!" Edenspiekermann was praised as a speaker and designer by Ableton, a Berlin-based maker of music software.
It functions best when paired with striking graphics, vivid colors, and a motivating color scheme.
Edinburgh-based Yiibu is a mobile design business. This is a stunning, entertaining, and deliciously on-brand website, according to Yiibu, its co-owner and designer.
Considering the demographic and the need to integrate both audio and video, they did an incredible job, despite some of the site's heavier sections. Be on the lookout for innovative and useful design elements, such as rotating column labels on a software comparison table to make it more appropriate for smaller screens.
#02. Adobe & HTML
This website (opens in a new tab) shows Adobe's web-related products. Performance should be greatly improved, and I dislike how the menu takes up the majority of the top space on mobile.
This website is being highlighted because it's adaptable design and content show that Adobe, the industry leader in print design tools, is starting to understand the modern web and the requirements and preferences of its designers. With its design background, Adobe seems to have the opportunity to make the whole site responsive and aesthetically pleasing.
#03. A Different Event
A researcher, web developer, as well as author of Implementing Responsive Design, praised the newly renovated An Event Apart website as being "beautifully built" and "beautifully conceived." "[Developers] prefer using SVG icons, but they will occasionally utilize PNGs.
When images are visible, they are lazy-loaded. As you navigate down an event page, for instance, speaker photos progressively fade in. All of this is paired with an attractive and tidy appearance!
#04. BBC News
The BBC News mobile website was the finest responsive site of 2012, according to Clearleft designer as well as the author of the monthly Responsive column at.net.
It is still responsive, despite not being quite as responsive in style and appearance as desktop browsers.
It adjusts well to various device requirements and was created with a mobile-first approach. This is a fantastic illustration of progressive improvement.
Although responsive photos are a trendy issue, the BBC has a highly practical approach to them. The lead story's single image is the only one that is used in the markup. Only those devices with higher capabilities obtain highly optimized photos for all other stories thanks to conditional loading.
It is really quick and available on all devices. I would like to see performance get more attention in the upcoming year than visual layout and design. In this regard, the mobile website for BBC News serves as a superb model.
#05. Build 2012
The main designer for Paravel cites Andy McMillan and Kyle Meyer's concepts for the new Build conference venue site as one of his favorite moments of the year.
"The 2012 edition was responsive, and it's my favorite effort thus far," the author said.
#06. Contents
According to Ethan Marcotte, a designer and developer at Boston's Filament Group, "Contents magazine may have an unfair advantage with creative directors, but nobody said my choices had been fair." Additionally, he founded and served as chair of the W3C's Responsive Image Community Group.
Beautiful typography can be seen throughout Contents, which also has a layout that places the material front and center at all sizes.
Depending on the breakpoint, the pictures will wrap in different ways around the prose. They don't detract from the design but rather enhance it. The point of this "web design" stuff is to make reading it fun.
#07. CSS-Tricks
Again, choosing a website with Chris Coyier's name (opens in new Tab) feels a little bit like cheating, but fair's fair, the man is a beast, and he did an excellent job with this revamp, says the researcher with a chuckle.
On his website, Chris is able to offer an excessive amount of information. He accomplishes this with a design that is both rational and personable across all screen sizes.
The honorable nomination should go to Chris' codepen.io, which is now unresponsive when editing. This tool is excellent for test scenarios and short demos.
There is some amazing stuff to be seen. We found it fascinating that CSS Tricks uses a carousel for both their desktop and mobile versions of their website's popular monthly content.
Surprisingly, this carousel offers a more comfortable experience on the mobile version. On the desktop, you must utilize a scrollbar to swipe the content, which is something that the majority of UX-UI designers are currently attempting to avoid.
The carousel might not be the best option in this situation to display the postcards. Carousels provide a poor user experience (UX) for online users and have been proven to interfere with rankings in Google's SERPs.
But it's a lovely touch that they decided not to show any adverts at all in the mobile version. After all, the relevant content on the mobile version takes up the majority of the screen space with Customized Website Features.
#08. Currys
Currys may not have as high of a design standard as many agencies and personal websites, but I chose it because of its significance to responsive design.
According to the creative director, "It's the first significant ecommerce website to utilize responsive design."
It offers excellent experiences across a wide range of devices and handles a massive volume of goods and content in various shapes.
Clearly, the Currys web team has given this codebase some thought.
#09. DConstruct 2012
Apart from the incredible speaker lineups, this same dConstruct website is a brilliantly designed responsive environment, according to Sparkbox, a tiny Ohio-based business.
My favorite aspect of the website is navigation. The additional iconography enables a viewing experience with a reduced size.
This shows that a mobile-first approach was taken while designing the website with the touch goal in mind. Good work!
#10. Disney.com
"When a website with the media richness of Disney went responsive it really highlighted how valid the approach for delivering multimedia material online," says the web designer and developer at Filament Group.
The website's clean, beautiful design draws attention to the captivating Disney film and television graphics. Additionally, it effectively utilizes pushState and Ajax history for seamless page changes.
The website offers appealing contextual interactivity as well, including off-canvas navigation on small screens and gesture-driven carousels that can be accessed via touch devices.
#11. Fray, Issue 3
According to Scott Jehl, Issue 3 of the Fray was "It was his favorite responsive design, the web's first storytelling magazine.
The issue's stunning adaptable cover design makes use of cover art design aspects across the layout. Additionally, each piece in the issue has a unique art-directed design of its own. This is comparable to what we see in print periodicals, but it happens less frequently online.
"A few examples for layouts that take care are the skewed title, byline, and paragraph of the Braces' essay, as well as the offset pull quotes utilized throughout." calibrated CSS to great effect.
The information on the website is meant for adults.
#12. Gov. uk
The Gov. uk design (which has virtually no pictures) is relatively straightforward, but it is obvious what its aim is: so that you may easily discover the data you require.
The work for government websites is not simple. This site is responsive and shows how carefully considered content and structure can enhance user experience regardless of the device being used.
Governments must make their information easily available, and I'm confident that this website's simplicity will serve as a model for other government agencies.
#13. Heroku Status
His second-choice researcher claims that Heroku is a service for deploying web applications. The readership for this website is predominately very technical.
" The status page for Heroku's service cannot be used to check its uptime. It solely offers a timeline of reports and status updates on any issues.
The presentation on small screens is conventional but practical and semantically rich. Additionally, it has a nicely done list presentation.
When the viewport is greater, the timeline changes into a vertical data display. It is more interesting in this scenario since incidents are enclosed and connected to time points by curved HTML5 canvas-drawn lines.
#14. Lotta Nieminen
"The smart website of Lotta invites inquiry. Content in adjacent sections is teased on the left and right sides, "The researcher exclaims.
"I knew this would split at different widths. However, the functionality is consistent and uses media queries and JavaScript to logically stack and resize each individual column."
Read More: What is responsive website design?
#15. Microsoft
The researcher explains, "I'm excited about the new Microsoft(opens new tab) website for a lot of reasons." It's incredible to see a firm of Microsoft's size support responsive web design.
This demonstrates how far we have advanced in the last two years. We are given a level of spaciousness and cleanliness that is lacking on corporate websites thanks to this design, which embraces the Metro style.
Additionally, there is a tonne of navigation. Because of this, using it in a variety of viewports and interaction styles may be challenging. In contrast, to hover, the drop-downs are situated behind touch or click [events].
Even at higher resolutions, I anticipate seeing more of this in the near future. Good work!
A researcher, who worked on the site's development, said: "Since Trent, Dave, as well as Dave, are too modest to extol the virtues of Paravel, I shall.
We were thrilled to be a part of Microsoft during such a momentous period. It's a great illustration of how big businesses are using responsive design.
#16. Polygon
The lead creator of Paravel and co-host of ShopTalk, calls Polygon "an incredibly rich responsive gaming website that puts its big brothers (IGN as well as Gamespot) to shame." "The huge graphics send tingles through my gaming system." Interior posts are a fantastic blend of adaptable architecture and art direction.
#17. Riot
"Simple and centralized sites may seem like they may be converted to responsive design quickly," explains a researcher.
But for everything to effortlessly adjust, one needs expertise, thought, and a keen eye. The website for Riot does just that.
#18. Skinny Ties
While I don't own any skinny ties other than a few leftovers from the 1980s that I keep stashed away, Ben Callahan comments, "I think this site has been nice.
It's encouraging to see responsive technology being used on more intricate websites, like e-commerce sites. All resolutions can navigate this website with ease. The little end, though, is where it really shines. In spite of hovering on touch devices, it still functions well because of its visual character, which is ideal for a business this size.
Thank you!
#19. Starbucks
Mark Paravel, the founder of Paravel, thinks responsiveStarbucks.com is a fantastic website. The included web-based style guide, however, is even better.
More effectively than a.psd or.pdf, it communicates the force and fluidity of responsive layouts.
Starbucks is a fantastic example of a responsive website that uses a basic, attractive, flexible design. Although there is no sophisticated parallax, the static but vibrant graphics of their seasonal product line does the job just as well.
However, one problem they might have encountered is that when the design is scaled down, their product's "menu," which also happens to be a menu choice, is bundled together into a hamburger menu.
Why may this be an issue? You guessed it. Starbucks evidently understood business customers well enough to know that they would "get it" because many people are shocked to find a "Menu" option when those who open the hamburger menu.
because, in this instance, they are definitely referring to their product menu rather than the menu on their website!
#20. Tattly
The creator of the temporary tattoo website, cautions: "I just placed a hazardous time-sink in this list." He also offers your supervisor an advance apology.
I've devoted a lot of time to studying Tattly designs on various platforms. I don't mind spending a great deal of time because I never feel pleased with what I can get. Their website works with a wide range of windows and device sizes.
What's perhaps even more significant is that it gives me the means to seem badass. Just a few days, you understand.
#21. The Next Web
An author acknowledges that he still dislikes the sticky sidebar feature. The use of typeface and whitespace creates a calm atmosphere.
TNW on my tablet is a wonderful experience to visit. It reads well and has a fantastic vibe about it.
#22.The Shape of Design
An idea of a responsive reading experience, according to a researcher, is motivational on all fronts. It's a delight to read The Shape of Design in his online edition.
The chapter navigation, which is quite inconspicuous, works nicely with it. Everything is completely proportional, thanks to the media-query font size scaling.
#23. Time
Time has adopted responsive news websites, following The Boston Globe's example. It's sufficient that there is only one news website that provides a mobile connection to the "full website." On mobile, though, the site looks fantastic.
The Time persona is present. The creators have maintained scaling, even though part of the text might be too small for some devices: it's always a good idea.
It is a good first step in the right direction, even though there are certain measures that could be made to increase performance, such as serving photos at scaled sizes.
#24. United Pixelworkers
Researcher: "I admire the United Pixelworkers' powerful grid structure, bold simplicity, and navigation approach that works well on small screens."This online store is comparable to Currys.
On whatever device, it makes it simple for me to make purchases. "It's unfortunate that you rush to Shopify to complete your transaction. At the very least, I'd like to see a branded checkout page shortly.
However, purchasing T-shirts is still quite easy. "Responsive eCommerce is tricky, but the Pixelworkers appear to have figured it out,". Excellent homepage, product pages, and checkout process.
If you want to build a fantastic responsive e-commerce website, you should start here.
#25. University of Notre Dame
"I appreciate some of what the University at Notre Dame is accomplishing under the hood," exclaims an author. For small displays, the page weight is decreased using RESS.
Campus Tour is improved with geolocation as well. If it determines that you are on campus, it will list the closest places and provide walking routes. This is a practical method for enhancing the experience by utilizing the device's context and capabilities.
Wrap up - Responsive website examples
Responsive design can be used to design in many different ways. The methods for displaying content are numerous.
Because it doesn't discriminate against people based on what device it is being presented on, UX design may be enjoyable. Although you might initially feel confined, responsive design enables you to work wonders despite the limitations by WEB DESIGN COMPANY.
