We’ve been talking about the importance of responsive web pages for a long time, and now it’s time to focus on good responsive web design.
While a lot of people talk about responsive web pages, not everyone knows what they’re talking about. A lot of times you see information on the Internet that challenges your understanding of responsiveness.
Sometimes small reports give you constructive suggestions and help move your design in the right direction. But sometimes you get confused, and the design is the opposite of what it really is. Don’t blame anything when this happens. The field of responsive web design is still very new, and it’s all in production.
Besides, it is human nature to create rumors and “myths”. Although, as Barbara Streisand famously put it, “myths are a waste of time.” They reject progress. It’s better to look for tidying up than superstition. To find the truth, understand the pitfalls of responsive web design, and learn some tools to make a big difference
1. Responsive Web design = mobile optimization
Yes, it’s true that the mobile Internet is growing rapidly right now, so responsive web design has always been the focus, and the conceptual protagonist. But it’s not the only one, because you also have to think about the device. Such as flat panels and TVS. The real purpose of responsive web pages is to adapt web pages to any screen, any scale and width of Internet products. These go far beyond phones.
2. Test on as many devices as possible
In the design world, most designers only test their websites on a small number of devices, and the same goes for responsive websites. It’s impossible to test all the devices. In fact, we should carry out targeted tests according to our users, so that the operability is stronger.
3. Fonts need not be optimized
Unfortunately, too many designers think this is true. They focus on size on devices and web pages rather than what users actually see. A website must be very readable, and responsive site fonts are important considerations.
4. One adaptation experience is not enough
People want access to different devices, and that drives designers crazy. This also leads designers to feel that the site must adapt to the user’s every customized device. It’s not that hard. You can easily adapt your site to any device.
5. Responsive web pages are slow because they load too much content
This is what people imagine, but it’s not fair, there are a lot of small specifications for a site with a lot of content that loads quickly and smoothly, indicating that these problems are not design problems, the fault is page loading speed, it’s code optimization problems.
6. Responsive web pages don’t have to be available to every use case
This is extremely wrong, because use cases are the focus of responsive web pages. Designers must consider each use case and test all their devices. Your users will want to use your site at any time.
7. Responsive web pages are not suitable for e-commerce
Fake. E-commerce sites have a lot of content, but responsive web pages are great for retail. In fact, it has become so inevitable that a study by Juniper Research suggests that 30% of all online transactions will take place on mobile devices by 2018. Moreover, the number of mobile shoppers has grown from 393 million to 580 million since 2014, illustrating the potential of responsive web in e-commerce.
Responsive Web design is time consuming
It’s possible to spend a little more time thinking about reactive effects, but not much. All you have to do is create a common adaptation code base and content base. And more and more companies are developing responsive frameworks, so we don’t have to spend as much time doing the same thing.
9. Every person and company needs a “hug” response?
Not everyone sees the value of responsive web design. It means giving users as much information as possible, but it doesn’t mean that a company needs to make its website responsive to be successful. Because it requires the enterprise to consider its own input-output ratio, the company will decide whether it is needed or not according to the situation.
10. Need responsive Web pages support all browsers?
The responsive Web development department will continue to improve the web, but that doesn’t mean it should support all mobile browsers. It generally only supports the following browsers: Chrome,Firefox and Safari. You’ll have a hard time getting it to support older versions of IE. This is a good thing, because users will upgrade their browsers if they don’t support it.
It’s too expensive to make
It is true that implementing responsive web pages requires a variety of skills, tools and techniques. But it’s not much more expensive than the hard working web designers. In fact, responsive web pages can save you some money on server costs.
12. Responsive web pages affect website SEO
SEO support for responsive web pages is great, and many search engines will find that your site is not optimized for mobile and downgrade your site. Because these search engines want to provide more user-friendly content, if you support mobile, they will inevitably improve your site rankings.
13. It’s easy to convert existing web content into responsive
On the contrary, it requires a variety of tricks to seamlessly switch content from the big screen to the small screen. The transition process requires identifying important content, removing excess content, and scaling to fit smaller devices. In short, make it look good on the phone and easy to switch between devices.
14. “Mobile first” means mobile is the most important, not the original site
If you’re thinking about mobile first, you’re thinking about the user first, and it’s going to give the user a better experience using the mobile version and the original version, and the idea is just to give the user a better experience regardless of what content they’re accessing.
15. Individual device breakpoint responsive web pages require priority
Responsive web pages are not about shrinking the site to fit devices. There are more pages to do, and if you want to develop a responsible website, you need to understand user interfaces, not just interfaces. This is not just a breakpoint for a single device, but builds a framework to accommodate a variety of situations.
16. Use an optimized image to fit all screens
Since you’re putting images in a small container, you obviously need to optimize them. While it’s impossible to make one image fit all devices, you need to optimize them. Device sizes vary too much. If it’s just a single image, too many pixels will load slowly, and too few pixels will display poorly, so you have to have several sizes to fit multiple devices.
17. Content can be hidden in reactive forms
Maybe that’s true, but only if web designers don’t know what to do. To experienced web designers this is ridiculous. Responsive web pages are designed to make content more accessible. The idea of hiding content is the opposite, if you’re more likely to have ancillary features than hidden content, go with the optimized model.
Responsive web design is the trend of the future
Perhaps this myth comes from the 22% of marketers who are experts in responsive design. 29% of you know something about responsive, 23% of you know something about responsive, and then you don’t know anything about responsive
But now responsive web is really the mainstream, people need responsive web pages, five years from now it’s hard to say, successful responsive design is inseparable from practice, and in practice to explore more fluid patterns.
19. Responsive web pages must be your priority in a project
The user experience is key. Often, designers prioritize mobile users, but not always. It’s your responsibility to find that balance.
Responsive web design is the perfect model
I hope no one believes this “myth”. Experienced designers know that there is no such thing as a perfect model, especially in an era of rapid development. There are always complaints about slow load times, but we’ve achieved smooth presentation across multiple devices, and 60% of our users access the Internet from mobile devices, so responsive web pages are currently the best solution.
Responsive web design is not a formal science and it’s hard to explain why it works, but it’s worth mastering because it can improve your chances of success and that of your company.
Original: http://www.instantshift.com/2015/07/20/responsive-web-design-myths-busted/ (YunRui translation)