The Latest Rules Ruling Responsive Web

Responsive web design is the latest trend in the web world and you will hear almost everyone talking about it; and by everyone I mean those people too who are not tech savvy. In web world, when some trend is growing like anything, it has to become the talk of the town and this is exactly the case with responsive web designing. Now, that everyone is into designing responsive web designs, the way websites were designed is also changing with it. Not only they way of designing a website is changing, web designers have to change themselves with every trend and same goes for this one.

When a new thing is introduced, a set of rules is laid for designers to follow. Same is the case with responsive web designing. Since things are changing rapidly, these rules will allow designers to work with the stability. So, today we will be discussing some ground rules of how designers should work on designing responsive websites. These rules can also be considered upcoming trends in the responsive designing industry. So, all designers should keep themselves up-to-date in order to move with the world. I personally believe that with all these smartphones, androids and iPhones; responsive web designing is here to stay so, better learn the rules and follow them.

Responsive-Web

1.   Do not focus solely on ‘Linear Scaling’

As a designer, if you are looking at a responsive website, the first thing you will do is change the orientation of website in order to see how the website looks. Scaling the browser will be your first priority. However, a user doesn’t care about all these things. He has no concern if the website squishes in a proper manner or not. He will only want to see the thing he is looking for in your website.

Now, this brings us to our rule number 1. As a designer, you should not completely focus on squishing the website or seeing if it looks skinny or fat when changing orientations. For a successful responsive web design, you should be able to design something that fits itself according to the browser and phone. After all, this is what responsive web designing is all about.

2.   There are NO Shortcuts:

Let me honest here, responsive web designing is not something easy and everyone should accept it that it is a complex thing and it will always be. I know people want to hear the opposite but that won’t be true. I know for a fact that people have been looking for an easy way out. They try converting their website into a responsive one by simply adding something and some have not even tried adding anything at all. They are looking for developers who can tell them if their existing website can work as a responsive one or not.

I would strongly recommend designers to avoid adding new designs into existing ones as it will further complicate things. This brings us to our rule number 2 and that is to understand that there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to responsive website designing.

However, if you want to follow an easy route, you should try prototyping your wireframes. This will help you a lot in saving your time. You can find a lot of websites online, which can help you in designing prototypes swiftly. However, this is not enough for designing a good responsive website but still; it will simplify things to some extent.

3.   Accept changes:

Well, if you are a designer and have been in the industry for some time, you would know how rapidly things change in web world. Earlier, only two to three tools were used to develop a website. Now, designers have a lot of programs to build a website. The point here is that things will change with the passage of time and you need to embrace them.

As far as responsive web design is concerned, you will have to change the way you have been designing. You should find alternates to design communicative visuals. These visual brands will help you in visualizing how your website will look once it is live. I would also like to mention here that CSS preprocessors can be of great help when it comes to responsive design strategy. This will definitely ease things for you during development of a website.

If you are a competent designer, I am sure you can find a lot of good alternates to support your responsive web designing and to make the procedure less complicated. In any case, designing a responsive web won’t be anything like designing a simple website so instead of running away from changes, accept them and move on with the world. You cannot stick to old ways in order to design something new.

4.   Respect your roots:

I am sure designers will agree here that CSS and HTML have been intrinsically responsive. When designers started using HTML for websites, they knew that HTML is adjustable with any hardware. This thing took a backseat when designers and developers changed things and moved towards fixed layouts. It is because of the designers and developers that website was initially restricted to desktop only.

However, now that we have so many different ways to access web, we should start using HTML again in order to bring that flexibility back. Although one should change with the world but one should never forget their roots. So, the forth rule of responsive web designing is to remember and respect your roots.

Conclusion:

These ground rules will definitely help you in understanding responsive web designing in a better way. Not only this, you will be able to design them with fewer complications. Also, keep one thing in mind, your design should be visually appealing but what matters the most is that it should cater the needs of the user.

If you have any suggestions or rules that you think should be added in the list, please feel free to share them.


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5 Comments

  1. Alex says:

    Responsive design is a must for all websites today to rule the web and have a better user experience to fit all screen sizes.

  2. Anna says:

    Thank you for the rules, these are indeed very important!

  3. Kannan says:

    Well, thank you very much for the explanation. Creating responsive designs can be confusing at first, mostly because of the radical change in thinking that’s required. As time goes on, responsive web design is drifting away from the pool of passing fads and rapidly entering the realm of standard practice.

  4. Jake says:

    Hi thanks for the rules, where would you suggest to go to learn more about responsive web design, maybe some tutorials?

  5. Rahul says:

    very nice tutorial very helpful to design website thanks for sharing..