5 golden rules of responsive web design

In the world of web design today, responsiveness has become a significant trend, and it is now becoming a norm. A lot of internet users love visiting responsive websites. Perhaps this is because the sites can fit into any device such as laptops, phones, tabs, etc. However, responsive web design goes beyond the ability just to resize pages to fit into different devices and screen sizes. There are some other applicable rules you have to take note. Are you into responsive web designing? Or you want to know more about responsive web design? If yes, it is good that you are here. Below are some of the golden rules of responsive web design:

1. Make use of real content in designing

In creating a responsive web design, you should have a fantastic idea of the material you will be publishing on the final site. There is no point in creating a website without having an idea of the content that will be useful on it. But the minute you come up with a super material, you can also structure "content reference wireframes." Stephen Hay discussed this term in one of his books Responsive design workflow. It builds an outline of materials utilizing rectangular blocks. Hence, giving reference to where all the contents located.

This procedure is useful in reflecting the original outline of your main models. With this, you can highlight the locations of the secondary modules, navigation, footers, and sub-navigation in the central body of the web page. When you achieve this, you are already building a framework where you will see later on input the layered detail.

At this stage, you should put your responsive breakouts into consideration. With the material you have, you can design a single-column outline for mobile phones. And you can best achieve this with HTML.

2. Make it functional generally

One common thing about a responsive website design is that you cannot foresee how well different users will experience your site, particularly the mobile users. For instance, 200 users can make use of your website in 200 different ways. Perhaps because of the difference in the devices they use, the input type, different screen resolutions and screen sizes, etc. Therefore, your responsive website design has to be capable of functioning on different devices and also adapt to whichever way each customer chooses to use it. You do not have to include every element in all device classifications. You should just consider every probable context. For instance, someone using a desktop computer can like to view the side bar widgets on the edge of the blog entries while a mobile phone user may not like it. Perhaps because the screen is too small and he/she will just like to view recent posts only. Also, you can add the tiles with the post thumbnails. This will make the items look more beautiful on the device.

3. Make use of "In-browser" design

Another rule to follow in responsive web design is scrapping Photoshop comps and flat visuals. The Photoshop comps and flat visuals can create an unwavering view of how a website will look in a particular browser with various widths, hence confusing the process.

However, they mostly do not end up like that. Either it is spacing the elements or padding, the final look and quality can be slightly different. The issue visuals mostly have is that they can look too perfect. The pictures are brittle and the letterings even and aliased. Also, the addition of the blend modes and the drop shadow feature makes your design appear like an art work. You should reduce the expectations of the client before the designs are signed off. To achieve this, make use of CSS values and HTML in building a responsive pattern. Make your designs in the form that the final work will take. Also, reflect it in your browser and let your client view it on different widths and various devices.

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However, if you are not a pro at front-end development, you do not have to worry. Some modern tools to help you design responsive prototypes like Adobe Edge, Webflow, and Macaw, are evolving. On the other hand, you can also consult a developer to put you through. But it is recommended that you also know the first steps. It will give you a better understanding of how the super design will be implemented. Also, creating your design this way will make it easy for you to alter it in little time.

4. Make a pattern library

A significant output in responsive web designing has a style guide. The style guide will consist of the communicating states of the modules and the key style you want to utilize in the design. Also, it can contain a bit of the responsive framework. However, there is a modern way of building a pattern library for A List Apart. What you have to do is to define every collective UX patterns that you made use of on your website, showing the code snippets and notes by the way. And you have to clarify how every module will adjust amongst the breakpoints that were demarcated.

5. Mind the website performance

You cannot predict the next person to visit your site, what connection, and which device he/she will be making use. This is the main reason why you have to mind the performance when you are designing your responsive website. Most users do not like it when your site is not loading fast enough. In other words, when your site takes a long time to load, you lose customers.

Therefore, the reliability and performance of your website matter a lot in helping you build your user's trust. And when your site looks good, and your users also enjoy the performance, you will get more customers. In the light of this, the major thing to note is that you should make sure your web pages are as light as they can. A larger percentage of the sizes of many web pages are just images. And the remaining part comprises the style sheets, scripts, and some other media files.

At the moment, the coolest way of bringing down your file sizes is removing them from the graphics app you are using. However, this may not do, particularly when your PNG files are utilized with transparency. In cases like this, some websites like TinyPNG help designers in decreasing the files size by removing some image colors and cutting excess data.

Conclusion

In the world today, web developers not just worry about the typography styles and the colors of their web pages. There are many other things to keep in mind when designing a responsive website. Some rules of creating a responsive website have been discussed above. Go by them, and give your users a better experience!