Handling Responsive Designing Strategically

When it comes to mobile site development this year, responsive web design is being considered as the knight in shining armor. Honestly, it makes sense too because at this point of time, responsive web design is the only solution for dealing with the device’s resolution. Thanks to the responsive designing, a website is easily accessible through any device. Also, it is only because of responsive web designing that a website can be accessed via different browsers. So, things have gone a lot simpler ever since the responsive web designing has taken over.

Although there are a lot of advantages of responsive web designing, it is still not the ultimate solution for everything because it has its own limitations and restrictions. Despite all its imperfections, responsive web designing is well known and is being used. Web designers have their own point of views related to responsive designing and this causes a war among web designers with different point of views.

The Responsive Web Design War Strategy

Since we do not want out designers to have a war, we will be trying to explore the disadvantages of responsive web design along with the arguments and solutions, of course. This will obviously save the designers and clients for any unwanted consequences. Let us take a look at the disadvantages now:

1. Slows down the loading process:

In order to make the responsive version of your website successful, it is very important for you to make sure that it works as quickly as possible. Since, responsive designing is basically for mobile users, speed is more important because mobile users are using slow internet. Fast loading is the basic demand of responsive designing but it clearly goes against the demand.

Now, if you have a responsive website and in comparison to that your competitor owns a mobile optimized website, I can assure you that his website will a lot faster. Now, let us understand what makes the responsive website slower. The delay occurs because responsive website by default loads all images and scripts of your website even when they are not really mandatory.

Since a lot of unwanted stuff is being loaded, it obviously slows down your website a lot. Now, in this case your website will be a total failure especially if you are running an e-commerce website. When it comes to responsive designing, you are just testing the patience of your visitor and to be honest, internet users do not have much patience thanks to the way too many options available.

Solution:

In order to resolve this issue, you need to work on your implementation. If the content is unnecessary, simple remove it. Also, if you are a technical person you will understand that a lot of engineered solutions are available in order to resolve this issue. You can also opt for lazy loading which gives priority to the content and later on loads the images.

2. Your website is no longer a feature-driven website:

As a user when I am visiting a website from mobile device, I expect it show all the core features just like a desktop device. However, this is not the case with responsive web designing. Since the whole strategy in responsive designing is to squeeze things, people sometime do not find important features because they are hidden. Navigations menus overshadow everything else and this can be really annoying. Now, here you cannot decide on your own about which features are unnecessary because this depends on individuals. Doing so will definitely affect the usability of your website. Having said that, I would definitely mention that responsive designing is suitable for content based website. If your website is a feature driven website, responsive designing is so not for you.

Solution:

Well, in order to resolve the issue you can replace navigation menus with drop-downs. You can also opt for accordion layout for various categories and buttons. You can even hide the features into a button on the top side and the features will be displayed once clicked. This can be done easily without any complicated framework.

3. Not so supportive for advertising model:

3. Not so supportive for advertising model

When it comes to advertisement, there is not much you can do as a publisher. You can hardly tweak the advertisement however; even that does not guarantee the no-disruption of advertising model. Web advertisements businesses are basically built ad placement and if you have a responsive website, advertisers will think twice before putting up an ad on your website. If you will accommodate the advertisers on your website, chances are that you will end up breaking your own website’s layout.

Solution:

Well, I consider developers lucky here because most of the advertisers are not aware of how responsive designing works. Still, in order to resolve the issue you can simply see the ads in the form of a package. In order to simplify it, with your responsive website, you can simply become responsive with the advertisements too.

4. No compatibility for IE8:

4. No compatibility for IE8

Well, 24% of people still use IE for browsing and in any case, a responsive website will not support IE. If your client is unable to view the website and you tell him that it is not compatible with IE8, you are simply damaging your own reputation.

Solution:

This issue can be resolved by using Respond.js. You should consider it to be your savior. This script supports pretty much everything in IE8.

5. Requires experience, time and money:

5. Requires experience, time and money

Technology is something that can be understood however, in order to apply responsive designing; you need a lot of experience in web technology and of course design patterns. You will have to go through so many errors that it might exhaust you. Also, if you expect the browser to display your website perfectly, you are day dreaming. Also, the bugs and issues found will be different for every other device, which means you will be designing a responsive website and then you will be testing it on every individual device. A lot of hassle it is, no?

Solution:

Unless you plan to display the desktop version of your website, you will be investing a lot of time, money and will be requiring a lot of experience. However, since it is really in demand, things have gone easier. With the help of tutorials and various frameworks such as bootstrap, you can learn about the expected bugs and avoid them. You can also find online testing service so get one of those.

Conclusion:

Despite the issues, the popularity that responsive designing has gained proves that designers truly believe in it. Also, it depends on how you design your website. If done properly, you might not be facing so many issues. So analyze your website and then see if you really should go for responsive designing or go for a mobile optimized website.


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1 Comment

  1. Thank you very much for the share! it’s very important for a good website.