responsive design | Kenneth Ronkowitz

The increase and perhaps dominance of mobile devices has caused many changes in web design. Of course, every website should work well on phones, tablets and desktop devices.

One of the options to be considered is if the site should be a responsive or adaptive design.

The adaptive design adapts to different screen sizes. Designers must create layouts for the most common screen sizes in order for this to work. The adaptations of the design are limited to what the designer created for the website.

Responsive design style automatically resizes its layout depending on device size and environment. Only one design is needed, but coding must be hierarchical so that modules stack in the right order on smaller screens. Regardless of the device type, the design fits the screen.

It sounds like responsive design is the way to go, but despite its limitations, adaptive design has been a popular choice for web design over the years. Adaptive design is useful if you’re looking to add a mobile version of your website without redesigning all of your existing work. If you have a website and don’t have the time or budget to create a new, responsive one, adaptive design is a useful tool for retrofitting your existing site.

Another consideration is whether or not your mobile visitors have significantly different goals than your desktop visitors. If there are big differences, then it might make sense to choose adaptive design. An example is a website for a doctor’s office which might offer a full suite of capabilities on its desktop site, but offer easier, limited access to appointments and directions on an adaptive, mobile version. Then again, adaptive design means you need layouts of all size screens. Most designers would design for the most common screen sizes.

Retrofitting a website or adapting it for mobile is a good reason to go adaptive.

If you are starting from scratch, you’ll want to go responsive. More and more platforms, like WordPress and Squarespace, use responsive design templates. They only require one layout, so there’s no need for additional coding and design like there is for adaptive web design. Updating and maintaining your website is easier because there is only one layout to edit.
Responsive design also (usually) has a better UX because there is more consistency when viewing your website.

Are there any cons to using responsive? From a designer’s point of view, it lacks flexibility because having only one layout means you’re limited in terms of customization for different devices and screen sizes. Some people think these designs have slower load times because it requires additional code.

Conclusions? Adaptive design can be a good choice if you don’t have time to redesign your entire website or if you’re looking to simply add a mobile-friendly version. Responsive design is the modern approach to web development and if you’re creating a new website or completely overhauling your current one, it might be time to invest in responsive design.

SOURCE: business2community.com

Should your website be adaptive or responsive in its design? The takeaway from a post by Veronica Raducan on that questions is that while responsive and adaptive aren’t superior to one another, they are different designer tools.

I would disagree somewhat and lean much more to responsive as I see few reasons to use adaptive design. Currently, adaptive is the less common choice.

Responsive designs work by creating a single version of a web page, which then “responds” to the resolution and screen size of the visitor’s device and rearranges elements of the page so they comfortably fit the dimensions of the device.

Adaptive web design, on the other hand, requires the creation of multiple versions of a web page, usually desktop, mobile or tablet. Once the site identifies the visitors’ type of device, it then displays the version optimized for it.

Responsive has wider support and adoption, and is certainly less work for the web designer.

Responsive is also more flexible in that there are many existing screen resolutions used across all devices, and new ones are always appearing as screens on smartphones and monitors continue to evolve.

So, why would anyone choose adaptive?

One reason is if you want to target certain users or devices. If you are building a site for iPhone users, a responsive design will adapt the best it can, but you could design specifically for the iPhone X at 2436 X 1125 pixels.

Also, an eCommerce site may use adaptive design because they rely heavily on conversion optimization and apparently responsive designs aren’t as well suited for this because what works on Android, might not work on an iPhone and what works on Macs may differ on PCs.