The internet connection from mobile phones or tablets does not stop increasing. That is why web pages must adapt to this new user profile and their connection. The connection speed of these devices may vary depending on the location, whether it is a 3g, 4g, wifi, and therefore the loading speed of a website must adapt to this limitation. In addition, portable devices tend to have a great variety of screen sizes and resolutions, therefore they make the visualization of a web vary from one device to another.
This implies the way to approach the creation of a website to better anticipate the different limitations related to each support. Adaptive web design or «responsive design» is currently the solution to face this problem if you want to maintain the web’s uniformity across different screens.
The advantages of responsive web design
The advantages of adaptive web design are considerable. This technique allows to offer more versatility to the website that adapts to the different screen resolutions available. This technique allows universalizing the visualization of a website using the new rules and properties of CSS 3 (media Queries, microformats, etc.), accepted by the vast majority of browsers. You can also use means of device detection via PHP or javascript.
The width and images are automatically adjusted, resized, and panned as required by screen resolution. This technique allows an optimal visualization avoiding the loss of the vital information of the web.
When adaptive web design is applied, maintenance is reduced, and development costs are more interesting than a dedicated mobile platform.
With adaptive web design, there is no longer any concern about redirection of links. Once adaptive web design is implemented, there is only little maintenance to perform, and the cost of development is more interesting than a specialized mobile site. At the end of the day, we are using much of the code instead of reprogramming from scratch.
With adaptive web design, you have the assurance that the URL does not change, which is perfect for marketing campaigns. In fact, not adapting the website to the user’s navigation support can greatly affect the browsing experience of mobile users, negatively affecting visitor traffic or loss of sales in an e-commerce.
The unique link to the original website helps mobile support to retain the same framework for details as the entire website, reducing the time it takes to adapt to the new format. The website is automatically displayed based on the screen without asking the user how they want to navigate. Of course, the web’s classic version should be available to users accustomed to the original display.
The downsides of responsive web design
Although the advantages of the adaptive web design website are numerous, there are nevertheless certain drawbacks. It is particularly about the loading time of the web.
Users are most frequently required to unnecessarily download HTML / CSS file. Similarly, pictures are frequently simply elongated and resized, affecting download time negatively. If the code is well optimized, this download of extra information will be imperceptible to the user. The images must be adapted in size, especially in weight (kb), to reduce the maximum load with slow connection speeds.
On the other hand, it is not possible to change names, descriptions, and other content on mobile phones easily in adaptive web design. In addition, it takes more time to build an adaptive website. It forces a download of all the elements that make up the page, which may cause a lower performance. There are definitely more difficulties in loading content from an adaptive website than content from a specialized mobile site. When working with responsive web designs, we should forget about widths and sizes in pixels and think in%. The same goes for font sizes. They can no longer have a defined size but must grow and shrink depending on the screen.
Responsive web design and positioning
Adaptive Website positioning does not cause problems. It is the ideal option if you want to offer your website in different versions. Image previews of a certain width on search engine results pages represent a considerable advantage for natural positioning.
Indexing with adaptive web design is also much easier, the latter adapts to all display media. Also, since each page on the site links to a unique address, the device version is of little importance. Incoming links are all directed to the same URL that facilitates web positioning. This allows savings since modifications are made on a single website and not on several.
Adaptive web design is certainly an efficient solution for an optimised user experience. It is a superior evolution of web design that invites designers to a new challenge and ensures users an enriched experience. As for the drawbacks of this technique, they are solved with a greater investment at the design level and at the website development level.
However, it is essential to know what alternatives there are. There are alternative mobile sites that direct visitors in possession of a smartphone to the mobile site or to native mobile applications that, although they are better at controlling the user experience and speed response, are expensive to develop and do not allow positioning, they need a prior download and do not quantify actual visits.
Are you looking to build a responsive website? You can contact Mavenup Creatives. It is a well-known web design company in Pakistan.
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