13 Quick Tips & Tricks for Responsive Web Design

These days, responsive web design is required. Your company cannot afford to maintain a non-responsive website given the rising amount of consumers using their mobile devices to research products before making purchases and to stay up to date on the latest news.

The popularity of mobile-responsive websites in Google's search algorithm is another factor that makes it evident that responsive design is here to stay. The responsive web design advice provided in this article can assist you in creating a visually appealing and functional website if you are just starting out. The same advice will also be helpful if you're remodeling an already-existing website.

The Best Ways to Use Responsive Web Design

You may ensure that your website is responsive and mobile-friendly by using the following suggestions for mobile website design and responsive design. Here are some of our top suggestions for creating responsive websites:

1. Understand how mobile is used by your audience

Recognize that web browsing behavior differs across desktop PCs and mobile devices. To learn why they are utilizing a mobile device to view your site and which pages and aspects they access the most, think about surveying your website users or using analytics. You can use this information to determine which pages and other components of your website should be easily accessible on smaller displays.

Making sure that your Contact page appears on mobile navigation, for instance, is a wise decision if they are performing a quick search on your website to find your contact information.

2. Create a design plan first

It's beneficial to plan the layout first before constructing your website. In actuality, before beginning the coding portion, most web designers first create a wireframe and then the website's visual design. Not only will this make it easy for you or your designer to alter the template and seamlessly include it with your brand, it will also help you achieve the exact appearance and feel that you desire.

To make sure the final design will be responsive, make sure to create numerous website prototypes and test them on various screen sizes. You may make responsive prototypes using the following tools:

- Reflow in Adobe Edge. By turning Photoshop files into HTML and CSS and enabling you to modify the design using mobile breakpoints, Adobe's tool enables you to graphically design a responsive website.

– InVision You may design interactive website prototypes with InVision. Users who have the URL can test the menus, buttons, scrolling, and other features and provide feedback. It's a helpful tool for visualizing how your website will operate in various scenarios.

- Wirefy. If you want to base your design on your content initially, this tool will be helpful. Without having to manually calculate widths and percentages, you can utilize a responsive grid and make a wireframe for your website.

3. Use caution when navigating

Any website's navigation is the most crucial component. It gives your visitors a map and makes it simple for them to navigate other pages on your website. The links to all the key pages in your navigation will typically be available on desktop versions of your site. The standard procedure when using a hamburger icon on mobile devices is to conceal the links behind it.

This isn't always the ideal strategy, though, as some users could forget to click the icon to expose the menu and end up dissatisfied because they can't access other pages. A better strategy would be to use the hamburger menu for the remaining links and to keep the most crucial menu items accessible on smaller displays. To make it easier for users to navigate, you can also incorporate links to other pages in the content on your homepage.

4. Image Optimization

Images are crucial to the appearance of any website. They can aid in establishing an emotional bond with your audience and help them picture the goods they're considering purchasing. Therefore, it's essential that your photographs are optimized for the web.

For icons and logos that need a translucent background, such as photographs or scenic images, the images should be saved in the proper format, which is JPG for photographic or scenic images. Additionally, to lessen scaling and bandwidth concerns, you should minimize the picture size using a program like Tinyjpg and think about choosing images that are optimized for different mobile breakpoints.

5. Use a mobile-first strategy.

Making a mobile-friendly version of your website first is another strategy for implementing responsive design. You can see how the graphics, text, logos, and other components will appear on smaller screens thanks to this. You shouldn't have any trouble expanding your design to larger screens if they display without any issues.

6. Acquire Knowledge of Media Queries

The first draft of media queries was included in the original CSS proposal, but they weren't implemented until browsers gave them official support in 2012. The primary function of media queries is to enable you to adjust your website's layout to fit different screen widths.

When employing media queries, the material will react differently on particular devices depending on the circumstances. Simply put, a media query will determine the device's resolution, width, and orientation and display the proper set of CSS rules.

7. Include keyboard triggers in your forms

Forms on your website should, of course, adjust to the width and height of the screen. However, you may go a step further and guarantee that the input fields activate the appropriate keyboard. By adding an input element to your form fields, you may do this task with ease.

Any input form that requires a number should immediately trigger the numerical keyboard, while fields that only accept text input, such as name, email, and address, should trigger a textual keyboard. This enhances both the user experience and your website's overall mobile friendliness.

8. Check That Buttons Can Be Clicked Easily on Smaller Screens

Don't forget to give your website's buttons particular consideration. It's simple to fall into the trap of making your buttons smaller in order to accommodate them on the screen because screen real estate is so valuable. They become more difficult to click as a result, though.

Make sure it's simple to identify your buttons:

- Make them stand out from the rest of the page by using color.

- You can depict the button with a circle or a rectangle.

In terms of size, think about adding padding to your button to expand the clickable area. In order to make buttons accessible, you can also adhere to the Material Design standard and make sure they are 36dp high. (1dp = 1px).

9. Improve the typography

Make sure the text is readable on smaller displays when it comes to text. 16px or 1em is a nice size for your body copy; after that, change the size of your headings appropriately. To give your paragraph lines enough space to breathe, you need also change the line height of your text to 1.5em.

Use a legible font as another mobile website design suggestion. Avoid using ornamental or script fonts in your menu items or body copy since they are difficult to see, especially on smaller displays.

10. Employ small encounters

The utilization of microinteractions is one of the greatest trends that is gradually permeating web design. Animations and interactive features may have once been thought of as "nice to haves" for the bulk of company websites. However, as designers have sharpened their attention to the user experience, the usage of animations, particularly in forms, has really shot to the forefront.

Instead of restarting the page, which might increase your bandwidth usage, they give visitors rapid feedback, which is especially helpful on mobile devices.

11. Use templates

If you incorporate a responsive foundation into your workflow, developing a responsive website will take much less time. If you want to create straightforward, static websites, an HTML framework like Bootstrap applied in an HTML template is a good place to start.

If you want to create a more complicated website and add a blog into your marketing approach, you may also benefit from readymade responsive WordPress themes. If you don't have much coding knowledge but yet want to handle everything yourself, frameworks like these are an excellent option.

12. Maintain a minimalistic style

With good reason, minimalist design has become more and more fashionable in recent years. It gets rid of all the extraneous stuff, lets users concentrate on your content more easily, which boosts conversion rates, and employs less elements, which speeds up the loading time of your website. It complements responsive web design since it enables you to draw attention to your calls-to-action and emphasize key portions of your website.

13. Check to see that your share buttons aren't blocking your content.

Including share buttons on your website can increase traffic and visibility for your content. On smaller devices, sharing icons can frequently obscure your material, making it difficult to see. Test the share buttons on a mobile device to ensure that they scale well, or you could disable them on screens lower than 768px.

Get Ahead With These Responsive Web Design Tricks and Tips

It is now required to create responsive site designs. It's a requirement. The reputation of your business and your conversion rates can be affected by responsive web design, which makes it simpler for anyone to browse your site without any problems. With the help of the aforementioned tips and methods for responsive web design, you can make your company website look amazing on any device your visitors may be using while also guaranteeing a positive user experience.

Markustudio is a Manchester-based graphic and web design studio that specializes in site design, logo branding, print design, and digital design. We love working with successful small businesses and big brands across the UK as a web design firm. If you are interested in any help when it comes Web Design & Development. Feel free to Contact Us.