ADAPTIVE VS RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN- WHICH IS BETTER FOR YOU?

Nowadays, responsive web design has become a catch-all term for making the website work well at low resolutions.

Smartphone revolutionized the mobile web. Also, these days tablets are throwing another wrench into the gears with their growing popularity in this dynamic market. With everything being considered, the latest website could be experienced on a low-resolution smartphone, a high-resolution desktop or laptop, or a medium resolution tablet.

When you put retina displays into the mix, the screen sizes will start dizzying. Ideally, your website will function gracefully on all of the screen sizes, at any resolution.

In the last few years, the website design company has collectively developed a shortlist of common best practices of web designing. These practices mainly focus on retrofitting websites intended for high resolution down to lower sizes. All of these practices are generally categorized as either responsive or adaptive layouts.

Responsive web design is the process of making a website work on very small screens, very large screens, and at any resolution in between.

ADAPTIVE DESIGN

With adaptive development approach, the work is fairly easy. In responsive web design, you can simply design one layout and then developed it. Generally, it’s easier to start at low-resolution viewports and work your way up. If you start with high-resolution viewports and go down, things could end up a little…compact. And by the time you reach mobile, cluttered.

The number of viewports designed is entirely up to you and the developer, work out a battle plan based on your users. If the web design company show users mostly using low and medium-resolution viewports, plan accordingly. You want at least three: one for low-resolution viewports (smartphones), medium resolution viewports (tablets), and one for high-resolution viewports (desktops and laptops). However, having more viewports will make the development and maintenance too much to handle, so be wary.

Final Words

As extensive as this article is, this is simply a primer on the subject of layout types. There is a lot of information about responsive web design methods not included in this article; Optimizing UI elements & typography, responsive images & media, device pixel ratios, and much more isn’t explained here. However, there are plenty of sources for such knowledge, in much more information-dense forms. Since the idea of responsive web design came around, we’ve contributed to an exceedingly vast wealth of knowledge on the subject. I hope by explaining the difference between layout types here, you’ll be able to better have a handle on the idea of a responsive web… without getting lost down the rabbit hole.

The community is constantly creating new techniques and constructing creative solutions to problems we’re only just starting to encounter. So while there is a vast wealth of information available about professional web design out there, it’s a concept still in its infancy. While best practices and common use cases are easy to conform to, being creative and paving your own solution is always encouraged. 

If you have any tips or suggestions for those of us just getting into or extending our knowledge of website design and development, spark a discussion below!