Hi 'm a Uni student and i'm doing a research project on Responsive Web Design and the question i'm asking is

 

"Responsive Web Design: a stop gap technique or the future of building web sites? "

 

I intend on researching whether RWD will becoming an "industry standard" way of design or will it be developed and pave the way for a different method which hasn't been discovered?

 

I would just like to hear various opinions and beliefs of anyone who's work it influences.

 

Thanks in advance

Edited November 22, 201213 yr by Agent Lunar

I believe it's the present. At this moment in time, it's probably the best way to build a website (unless a native app or mobile specific version is required). But in general I believe all websites should be built upon a flexible and responsive base.

 

For the future - who knows how the web will change, it changes all of the time, so in ten years time we may all be something completely different.

Thanks, do you prefer it as a design method as opposed to to building separate mobile site/mobile app? Or would you say it's situation dependant?

Situation dependant.

Sorry for the interrogation but from experience can you give examples when one process has been more effective than the other

 

Thanks

Definitely the future. Maybe not in the same shape or form but it will definitely become a core part of designing for the web, especially in this increasingly mobile world.

 

It's not even a new idea, just one that has recently caught on thanks to the mobile web. This is a nice article by John Allsopp from 2000. Link.

 

 

 

The web’s greatest strength, I believe, is often seen as a limitation, as a defect. It is the nature of the web to be flexible, and it should be our role as designers and developers to embrace this flexibility, and produce pages which, by being flexible, are accessible to all.

The journey begins by letting go of control, and becoming flexible.

As opposed to un-responsive web design, I'd say that responsive web design is the future (and present) more than anything else at the moment, as there are more and more screen sizes and devices using the internet now, so a website that is flexible and re-adjusts is much more likely to look good (and be useable) across the board, than one that doesn't. Unless in the future there becomes one set standard screen size (or something else which standardises) which is unlikely, then web designers will have to design in a flexible way for these different platforms.

 

Just trying to learn the bloody thing now!

Thanks for the feedback guys are there anybody who are opposed to/ don't rate it as much?

If your research is gonna bear any fruit, will you share it with the people in this forum?

It's not just about desktop vs mobile though - with RWD you can create a site that's at its best on both a 24" screen at 1920*1200 or 1920*1080 and a 17" at 1280*1024. Both are desktop contexts, but a fixed grid can only ever be just about good enough, whereas RWD can play to the strength of each.

I'm still in two minds about it, is it the future or just a fad us web designers are interested in. I'm not opposed to responsive design, my own site is responsive and I've developed a few other responsive sites and enjoy working with media queries but most of my clients couldn't give a monkeys if their site is responsive or not. Maybe it's just the clients I deal with which are mainly small businesses but most seem perfectly happy for people to use their phones native zoom function to view their sites. For now, I'm happy to go with the flow but having designed a number of responsive sites the novelty has now worn off and I find it quite a chore, it's a bit like having to debug for IE every time you build a site.

I'm still in two minds about it, is it the future or just a fad us web designers are interested in. I'm not opposed to responsive design, my own site is responsive and I've developed a few other responsive sites and enjoy working with media queries but most of my clients couldn't give a monkeys if their site is responsive or not. Maybe it's just the clients I deal with which are mainly small businesses but most seem perfectly happy for people to use their phones native zoom function to view their sites. For now, I'm happy to go with the flow but having designed a number of responsive sites the novelty has now worn off and I find it quite a chore, it's a bit like having to debug for IE every time you build a site.

 

It is definitely not a 'fad'. It is the way the web was supposed to be. You could say that fixed grids have been a 'fad' for the last two decades and now we're actually getting an understanding of how the web should be used.

I think it's will be the future. It will make it so much easier and so much cooler for the user.

Quite a few clients now ask for responsive design and with so many mobile devises available it will be here to stay.

In my opinion It's the present and for the forseeable future. Very popular at the moment and reasonably so. With the increase of smart phones and tablets it make sense to provide to the users on devices possible. I don't think any one can say or predict whether it will be here in the long term future, but at this moment in time yes it will be with us for a while.

Thanks all some very interesting perspectives especially from Fran who pointed out that maybe fixed grids were "fad" because they were a suitable workaround and now developers have evolved enough to see RWD is a way forward. From discussions I've had and observations I've made I believe RWD will definitely be around for a while but the necessity for it will be shaped by developments in technology, a lot of people are still happy to use a regular desktop site on a mobile device because features like pinch to zoom coupled with quicker internet speeds make life easier.

I personally think RWD is 'right now' and it's not just about having a single website for all devices, there are other benefits such as 'mobile first' - a methodology that helps fine tune the functionality of the site, eliminating unnecessary clutter in the user's experience across all devices.

 

And as for the future, this industry changes far to quickly to be have a definitive right or wrong way of doing something, let alone predict what that might be!