Responsive web design or RWD is a famous web design approach used to craft websites based on the devices used by users to view websites. This approach enables a website to instantly adapt the device differences and extend its ability accordingly. Therefore, this technique resolves the compatibility issues of websites with various devices like tablets, desktops, laptops and mobile devices.
The responsive web design uses media queries, flexible images and fluid grids find out the screen size and resolution of the user’s device and convert the website content to accommodate inside the screen.
Responsive websites provide users an optimal viewing experience, facile reading capability and flexible navigation across multiple devices ranging from desktop computers to mobile devices.
Responsive websites usually built for flexible usability. Responsive website designs provide user-friendly navigation for users using different screen sizes. It also supports features detection technology that enables users to completely utilize device-specific features.
Nowadays, the responsive web design has become more popular as the usage of tablets and smart phones is rapidly increasing. Users have started visiting websites from an increasing array of devices. Therefore, the usage of desktop computers is diminishing day by day.
According to the survey taken in the year 2012, the personal computer sales have been rapidly decreased when compared to the sales in the previous year. On the other side, it is anticipated that the tablet sales are going to exceed 100 million in this year. And, it is also noticed that the shift from old desktop computers to smart phones to view websites is also increasing at an extraordinary speed.
So, the boom in smart phones and tablets creates the necessity to build websites that automatically respond to user’s devices. In this situation, Responsive web design approach plays a major role. The responsive web design detects the type of device and adjusts the screen size, resolution and scripting abilities according to the device.
The responsive web design approach also eliminates the need for building separate mobile websites. It makes you to use a single website to maintain both desktop computers and small screen devices like mobile phones and tablets.
As almost all the web development companies have adopted this approach to design websites, it clearly shows that 2013 is the year that responsive web design takes off.