Responsive web design techniques Archives - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

Whether you are a small or large business, whether you have offline operation or a fully online business, the websites have huge impact on your marketing, sales and brand image. In Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah or anywhere in UAE the internet is widely available, in fact the 99% of the population of the country have access to the internet and almost same use mobile phones. According to several large-scale studies, the usage of internet and usage of mobile phone have become a part of our daily lives. Whether it is for business purposes or for personal use, the internet and mobile phone are very common.

In fact studies have suggested that on an average a UAE residence can spend several hours on internet and on their smartphones. No one can deny the importance and impact of social media on a business. The modern day websites have evolved a lot, starting from merely a digital/online brochure, the websites have become a very powerful marketing and communication tool. The usage of social media is increasing day by day, the online presence of brands has such a huge impact that businesses are investing a huge chunk of their hard-earned profit on digital marketing campaigns.

With the passage of time the digital marketing have surpassed the traditional marketing industry. The internet connectivity and easy access of smartphone have completely changed our lives. On an average a UAE residence spends hours on social media on daily bases to connect with friends and family and for entertainment purposes. This is what made digital marketing so important. Your corporate website is considered to be the center point of all your digital efforts, whether you run advertisement on social media, Google or any other digital platform, the final goal is to bring visitors to your website, which is the ultimate conversion tool of the digital world, and this is what made your corporate website so important for all your digital efforts.

Now a days when someone has to buy a product of if someone needs a service, whether it is a B2B or B2C business, most of the people tend to look it up in the internet. That is why your corporate website can become a high-revenue generating tool. In this blog we will discuss why a responsive website is crucial for a modern day business and what factors you should consider during your next responsive web development project.

What is Responsive Web Development?

Technically the responsive web development is defined as a website which contains multiple layouts in a single web instance. This may sound a bit complex, but it isn’t. In simple words, a responsive website is a web design which have ability to sense the screen size, platform and even browser from where it is being accessed, and then rearrange its components, design elements, and complete UI according to that to offer excellent user experience. That is why multiple layouts are programmed in a single website. The responsive web development has become very advanced, now a days, you don’t even have to build several layouts, in fact the programming have become so smart that it can handle a lot of things at its own.

However, there are several popular framework which are used to develop responsive web designs. The most popular responsive web development framework is Boostrap, however there are several other alternates such as Tailwind CSS, Bulma, Materialize, Foundation, Pure CSS, Skeleton, PowertoCSS, Element, Metro UI, etc. All these framework are suitable for different kind of responsive GUI (graphic user interface). However, the Bootstrap is the most popular and have tons of online support, so it is better to use this framework for responsive web development.

What is the Difference between Adaptive and Responsive Web Development?

The responsive web development is the most trending and modern approach to develop fluid web design which can re-order and rearrange itself according to the user viewport, the screen size and orientation. The frontend developers only need to be careful with the CSS and some programing tactics can achieve the goal. That is why for 99% of the responsive web development, the web developer utilize a framework and build their website on it. However, the adaptive web development is a very old technique, in fact it was the very first method to make traditional/desktop websites compatible with mobile screens. In adoptive web development method, the website designers built several different website layouts, unlike responsive where only a single layout is designed.

Usually in adaptive web development there are six most common layouts which are designed for very small screens starting from 320px to very large 1600pxand a few standard sizes in between, 480px, 760px, 960px, and 1200px. All six could follow the same theme or all six could made entirely different form each other. The responsive web development requires only single codebase, however, for the adoptive web development the web developer will have to build all six totally separate websites, that is why the adaptive web development failed and responsive web development have become the new industry standard.

Key Components of Responsive Web Development

Now the question is how the responsive web designs are made? Well! A web browser is basically a complier which executes certain source codes and generates output in the form of a website. It is also connected to the backend/server of the website which make our interaction possible with the websites and web applications. An ordinary web browser like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Opera, etc. can execute CSS, HTML and JavaScript (relevant to web development). When it comes to responsive web development, there are three key components that make a website responsive. Without these three components the optimum user experience in all compatible viewports is not possible.

1.Media Queries

CSS or Cascading Style Sheet is a web development programing language which is considered to be the industry standard for the modern websites. The media queries are basically applying different filters or conditions to the CSS code which enables a web design to respond to the platform, browser, screen size and even device orientation. The media queries are used to create different layouts using a single content block on the web page. A media query allow the design to follow a simple rule based on the minimum or maximum value of the screen rather than a numeric value which enables the content block to resize and even rearrange itself according to the screen size, orientation of the device, browser and resolution.

2. Flexible Visuals

This is a technique to create adaptive images using effective pixel (epx) technique which enable the web design to resize images according to the perceived screen size. This is important to manage different screen sizes and resolutions while using a single codebase. Usually the design elements are created using relative unit, such as 4 epx which is easier to scale to a whole number. Furthermore the fluid girds technique is applied to execute the flexible visuals or effective pixel layout technique. Without fluid grid implementation the flexible visuals don’t work. The adaptive visuals or flexible visuals allow an image to scale up to 100% of the size of its container.

3. Fluid Grids

Fluid Grids is a modern technique to align the elements of the designs with the screen size and resolution. The fluid grids are created using smart codes and algorithms, usually the screen is divided into smaller and equally sized columns and then all the design elements/content is placed in those columns with the aim to achieve 100% width which includes the content block, visuals or images, padding in and around the element to match the 100% width of the grid. That is why such web designs are also called liquid design and all elements are assigned relative sizes, usually in percentage to and the algorithms enable them to respond to the size of the view port or the width of the screen. All elements are created with proportional height and width which enables the layout to adopt the available space while keeping the design intact.

Best Practices of Responsive Web Development

A responsive web development is a crucial and important project for a business. It is not just the mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, PDA, etc. that you should prioritize, in fact both the desktop/laptop layout and the mobile devices layouts are equally important for the success. This might seem confusing or sophisticated, but it isn’t. Here are best practices for responsive web development.

Mobile First Approach: The mobile first approach is gaining huge popularity among businesses since the beginning of 2023 in Dubai and everywhere else in UAE. The main reason why mobile first approach is so popular is because it prevent several user experience related problems, designing for the smaller screens and then scaling it up ensures a smooth user experience and ensure a great user-friendly UI (user interface) at all screen sizes.
Touchscreen Compatibility: The user interaction and user experience is greatly different when the user interacts with mouse and keyboard comparing to when user interacts with their thumbs or fingers on a smaller touch screen. That is why this technique is used, it allow the web developer to add features such as adequate space for swipe/scroll, touchable buttons, widely-spaced links, intuitive menu and user-friendly navigational structure for the mobile device user.
Prioritizing Design Elements: The responsive web development enable the designer to prioritize different design elements for different screen sizes and layouts. The designer can choose what should be displayed on the smaller layouts and what shouldn’t. It is important to avoid putting such elements on small screens which doesn’t have much significance from the design/aesthetic or functionality point of view. It also improves user experience and make design more intuitive.
Implement Design Patterns: There are four most popular used design patterns, mostly fluid, column drop, layout shifter, and off-canvas. Such design patterns usually use breakpoints to adapt different screen sizes. A different CSS code can be applied to each breakpoint by using media query which optimizes the layout for user viewport. It is ideal method to transit from wider to screens to smaller screens such as design transition from 4 to 2 column, etc.
Accessibility: The accessibility is very important for responsive web development. It revolves around four principles, perceivable, operable, robust and understandable. Your website content should support screen-readers and other assistive technologies. The contrast and the font size should make the text more clear and readable. It should support voice-to-text inputs, and all functionality should be highly visible. The page-speed shouldn’t effected by these features.

If you follow the above mentioned best practices of responsive web development you can build a highly user-friendly website for your customers and targeted audience.

Why it is Important to Develop a Responsive Website for your Business?

Every business wants to reach out to maximum audience, if you know your most of the audience is using a particular communication channel, will you ever miss it out? Never, the responsive website is the same case. As the internet usage and web traffic from mobile devices is increasing day by day, the chances are most of your targeted audience and precious customers might be using smartphone or tablets as their first priority device to access to the internet. If you are running digital marketing campaigns then chances are most of the visits driven from social media platforms would be from smartphones and tablet devices. This is what makes responsive web development so important for a business.

However, here are some key advantages of responsive web development:

Instead of designing different layout for different screen sizes/platforms you can have one responsive website which is compatible with all targeted platforms and mobile devices and since the responsive websites uses only one codebase, the development time and cost is low.
The modern day users expect businesses to offer a consistent user experience across all channels which is easy to achieve with responsive web development. Responsive web development also improves branding and are much more cost effective than adoptive web development.
The SEO or search engine optimization is one of the most important factor in any website’s success. People tend to search for products, services or brands in Google, and the responsive web development aligns with the SEO standards of Google and help you drive more traffic from search.
The responsive web development usually uses a CMS which allows you to easily manage the content and media on your website. It also help you make changes quickly and doesn’t require making changes on all different layouts separately, which also makes management a lot easier.
The responsive web designs are more accessible. The users can easily connect with your business from your website. For example, they can instantly use location maps, contact you via WhatsApp with one click or make call to your number by one tap from their phones and much more.
Most of the users have their social media, WhatsApp and other apps on their smartphone, a responsive web design allow them to easily share links of your website on their social media or with their friends and family using other installed applications on their phone.
You can also create a separate mobile segment to collect the analytical data of your mobile users and to monitor their behavior on your mobile layouts. This is very important from strategic point of view and can help businesses greatly in improving user experience and user journey.

These are some of the main advantages of responsive web development. For different industries the importance might be even higher, but one thing is sure that for any present day business who wants to build a website it is must to have a responsive web design.

Conclusion

A corporate website is crucial for business’s success in the modern day and age. Studies have revealed that most of the people tend to search online for products, services and even for brand if they need anything. Your website could be your first interaction with a possible customer. It can greatly build or ruin your brand image. Hence it is important that you have an up-to-the-mark website with all modern day’s features and ingredients to ensure a satisfactory interaction and digital experience for your customers and targeted audience. Your website will provide you to reach out to the unexplored territories and access to the wider range of audiences from all over the world.

This blog is designed to provide all basic and necessary information about responsive web development. I have tried my level best to keep it simple and easy-to-understand by using less technical terminologies and simpler explanations. This guide will help you understand the subject, if you still have any doubts or questions you are welcome to drop a comment in the comment box below or if you want us to build a highly appealing responsive website for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page and we will get back to you soon.

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A Complete Guide to Responsive Web Development in 2023