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The Value and Importance of Responsive Web Design

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As a company investing in a website, one of the most important things is to have something that visitors find pleasant, easy to use and useful. Ensuring that clients and customers are able to easily navigate around a website rather than quitting in frustration and going to a competitor is a vital part of winning and keeping clientele in an increasingly digital environment.

The book (and website) that started it all, by Ethan Marcotte

Responsive web design goes a long way towards helping make the online experience of website users one that’s useful and enjoyable rather than frustrating. The popular technology site Mashable has hailed 2013 “The Year of Responsive Web Design” with good reason. Sites that are optimised for viewing via a number of platforms can make all the difference between a click-through and visitors who bounce straight off the site as more web users flit between devices on a daily basis. That’s why as a client looking to develop its web presence, it’s important to ensure that the web designer is aware of its value in winning hits and keeping visitors.

What do you mean responsive?

In web design terms, responsive means that a website is able to adapt seamlessly to offer the website viewer the best viewing experience in terms of ease of reading and navigation. This is particularly important as an increasing number of people move between viewing platforms from desktop and laptop computers to tablets and smartphones and expect that their ability to easily access websites will be unaffected by the transition.

Many web designers are now operating using the first principles of “mobile first,” assuming that the people will access the site using mobile devices. This enables an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for people who are using websites on mobile devices and also enables optimisation and simplification of websites for desktop or laptop use. Starting with a basic website and embellishing it for different platforms is much more likely to be successful than making a complex website backwards-compatible with mobile browsers.

The importance of responsive design

As smartphones and tablets become more and more popular, people are doing increasing amounts of their web browsing on hand-held devices rather than at a full-sized computer. That brings a range of challenges for designers in terms of the size, shape and layout of websites that render perfectly in all formats and give the user a good experience for the benefit of the company whose site is being accessed.

Rendering sites seamlessly on a variety of screens and platforms is incredibly valuable

The value of responsive design is enormous. The ability to provide a seamless experience between desktop and mobile devices allows a website’s visitors to rely on the ability to use the site wherever they are. That is an extremely valuable commodity to companies for whom web access is a key generator of sales and of reputation. Responsive websites also have the opportunity to offer richer functionality to users across the wide variety of platforms they choose to use to access websites. It also enables faster loading and more efficient use of data traffic for visitors, making repeat visits more likely.

Conclusion

As responsive web design takes off and web users become more accustomed to receiving a positive online experience from websites tailored for use across multiple access platforms, those websites that do not offer such seamless integration will see a drop-off in use and repeat visits. If you need advice contact a company like SAS a London digital advertising agency who will be able to help you plan/implement a responsive website.

The design principles allow companies and web designers the chance to offer a greater breadth of online services to visitors, which can be extremely valuable in terms of bottom line sales. Every repeat visit means another chance of completing a sale and to a company seeking to engage customers online that’s worth its weight in gold.

Image Credits: Chasing Daisy and Dave_Hallmon


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