What Is A Responsive Web Design?

Web Design – I’d bet you’ve heard the term ” responsive ” a lot over the past few years . And rightly so, since today it is absolutely essential to have a functional website. But do you know what exactly this term implies and how to implement it in your  marketing ? Let’s see it step by step.

What Exactly Is A Responsive Web Design?

A responsive web design is one that is capable of adapting to screens of different sizes with a single website. The system automatically detects the width of the screen and from there adapt all the elements of the page,  from font size to images and menus, to offer the user the best possible experience. It looks like magic!

Sometimes responsive is confused with mobile websites, but they are not the same. In the case of responsive design, we have a single website that can be adapted for devices of all kinds, from desktop computers with large monitors to mobile phones, including tablets and others. On the other hand, creating a mobile site implies designing an independent website from scratch, whose contents and format are specially adapted to work better on mobile devices.

In my opinion, the most recommended option is undoubtedly the responsive design, since creating a mobile website implies having two different sites and duplicating the maintenance and updating tasks. In addition, the responsive automatically adapts to all kinds of sizes. That being said, we can use a mobile site builder plugin (such as WordPress) as a temporary solution while we design a truly responsive site.

Why do you need to have a responsive website?

Because the world is increasingly mobile . In Spain, 27.1 million people access content from their tablet or smartphone and six out of ten have purchased through them. One in two users check the smartphone in the first five minutes after getting up and three out of ten check the phone every ten minutes. Globally, more than half of web traffic comes from mobile. In short, if your website is not displayed properly from mobile devices, you have a serious problem.

Because it improves the user experience

The responsive offers an optimized experience for all users, regardless of the device they use, and that results in benefits for the brand. According to Google Think Insights, if a user has a positive experience with your site, the possibility of converting is 67%.

Essential for your SEO

Already in 2015 Google updated its algorithm to penalize the positioning of websites that were not prepared to offer a good experience from mobile phones. If you do not have a responsive website, you are ranking worse each time a user searches for you and losing a great source of traffic.

It Will Help You Improve Your Branding

First impressions count, a lot. If a user tries to access your website from mobile and does not have a satisfactory experience, they will get the impression that your brand is outdated and your company does not care about customer satisfaction. On the other hand, a responsive, modern site with good usability will create a good impression that will naturally “infect” your products and services.

Because you will get more conversions and leads

Improving navigation on different devices ensures that users have an easy time finding what they are looking for, spend more time on your website and are more likely to end up leaving you their details or confirming the purchase on your landing  pages .

What Elements Must Be Taken Into Account To Design A Good Responsive Site?

Responsive web design is a  comprehensive discipline , which takes into account many factors to ensure a satisfactory user experience. These are some of the elements that need to be adapted to offer a good experience on screens of all sizes:

The fonts

Obviously, the font size has to be different depending on the screen, so that we can read the texts without having to zoom. This implies, for example, that we should not include columns with a default width on a responsive site. The font family we choose is also very important when determining readability.

The images and videos

The visual elements of the page must follow a logical proportion depending on the device where they are displayed, so that we can see them comfortably.

The horizontal or vertical format

In particular, it is required to take into account that mobile users tend to prefer the vertical one, but they can switch between both to view certain content.

The usability

Mobile and tablet users use touch screens to interact with content, while on computers this interaction takes place through the mouse. This implies that the menus, buttons and other elements must be rethought to offer a good user experience in both cases.